{"id":91,"date":"2021-03-12T20:01:35","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T03:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/?p=91"},"modified":"2021-03-12T20:01:57","modified_gmt":"2021-03-13T03:01:57","slug":"robinson-vs-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/2021\/03\/12\/robinson-vs-king\/","title":{"rendered":"Robinson vs King"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The various renditions of Thomas King’s ‘Green Grass, Running Water’ throughout the years. I am particularly intrigued by the centre artwork and I wonder what others think of the cover art. What one do you like the best?<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of the first things I noticed about Thomas King<\/a>\u2019s storytelling in Green Grass, Running Water<\/a><\/em> was the way that the four goddesses, Coyote and \u201cI\u201d spoke. Most of the storytelling that happens when any of these characters are \u201con screen\u201d is done through their interactions with each other or other characters who might happen along in the story. It is interesting when you think about how King was inspired by Harry Robinson<\/a> to tell these stories; they come off as is they are oral stories being told because there is not much description of the world around the characters besides what the characters describe themselves. Much like in Robinson\u2019s \u201cCoyote Makes a Deal with the King of England,\u201d the conversation is what drives the story. Though, what is important in both King\u2019s and Robinson\u2019s narratives is the conversations between characters as it is the connections between the people or characters in the stories that is the important aspect and not whether or not those characters are standing somewhere in Florida or in Blossom, Alberta.<\/p>\n

In the conversations that King writes, it is easy to see the influence of Harry Robinson\u2019s own form of \u201cwritten orality\u201d through the short, straight to the point sentence structure. The entirety of Robinson\u2019s Coyote story is in short, almost grammatically confusing sentences that, as discussed by my fellow classmates in previous blog postings, seem to force the reader to say the sentences out loud in order to gain their meaning. In King\u2019s novel, there is a replica of this kind of writing in the dialogue throughout the novel and not just with the above-mentioned characters. It can sometimes seem that two characters, engaged in conversation, are talking about two completely different topics. For example, in Part One of King\u2019s novel, the character Lionel seems to experience this the most whenever he begins to talk about his future with Bill Bursum:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking for someone to replace [Charlie].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll probably go back to school.\u201d<\/p>\n

. . . \u201cYou know, in a good year Charlie would make thirty-five, forty thousand dollars . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve got a jacket that\u2019ll fit you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably go back to school.\u201d (King 78 \u2013 79)<\/p>\n

A similar exchange can be read a little further between Lionel and his father, where while Lionel discusses his options about either going to school or working for Mr. Bursum, Lionel\u2019s father goes on about needing help around the house. While King\u2019s approach to dialogue is perhaps less confusing than Robinson because his sentences follow grammatical rules, he does play with the \u201chard to follow\u201d element that Robinson\u2019s text embodies by the disjunction between characters in their conversations.<\/p>\n

Both King\u2019s and Robinson\u2019s texts deal with creationism in some sense. While King\u2019s story focuses on the creating of the world through the four goddesses, Robinson\u2019s text discusses about the creation of the Indian Law or \u201cThe Black and White\u201d (Robinson 108). In both texts, the author\u2019s play with the character of God, however, each version of God in the texts has a distinct characteristic that more or less gives the reader a good sense of their character. In Robinson\u2019s text, God is not completely present as they instead send an Angel to speak to Coyote in order to get him to do their bidding. This version of God is seemingly all powerful and omnipotent, seeing that they understand that sending Coyote to the King of England won\u2019t produce the Indian Law until much later, when a Queen finally takes the throne. On the other hand, King\u2019s God is very childish and tantrum-y. They do not come off as being an all powerful being as most of their screen time in the story has them fighting with First Woman who doesn\u2019t understand the \u201cChristian rules\u201d (King 67). God comes off as a comical character rather than the great and knowing one from Christian texts.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n

CanLit Guides<\/em> Editorial Team, The. \u201cGreen Grass, Running Water<\/em> by Thomas King.\u201d CanLit Guides<\/em>, November 22, 2013, https:\/\/canlitguides.ca\/canlit-guides-editorial-team\/green-grass-running-water-by-thomas-king\/key-themes\/<\/a>. Accessed March 12, 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarry Robinson.\u201d TalonBooks, <\/em>https:\/\/talonbooks.com\/authors\/harry-robinson<\/a>. Accessed March 12, 2021.<\/p>\n

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water<\/em>. Harper Perennial, 2012, eBook edition.<\/p>\n

Robinson, Harry. \u201cCoyote Makes a Deal with the King of England.\u201d Living by Stories<\/em>. Talonbooks, 2005, eBook edition. Pp 93 \u2013 115.<\/p>\n

\u201cThomas King.\u201d HarperCollins, <\/em>https:\/\/www.harpercollins.ca\/author\/cr-100072\/thomas-king\/<\/a>. Accessed March 12, 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  One of the first things I noticed about Thomas King\u2019s storytelling in Green Grass, Running Water was the way that the four goddesses, Coyote and \u201cI\u201d spoke. Most of the storytelling that happens when any of these characters are \u201con screen\u201d is done through their interactions with each other or other characters who might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83481,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lesson-31","category-unit-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83481"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/caylabanman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}