2:6 – Read Out Loud

In his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” King discusses Robinson’s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, “the patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.” More than this, Robinson, he says “develops what we might want to call an oral syntax that defeats reader’s efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud” and in so doing, “recreating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to both King;s article and Robinson’s s  story.

Harry Robinson’s “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England,” was one of the most intriguing stories I have ever read. I did not figure this out until I read the story out loud to myself and had my fiancé read it to me. I read Thomas King’s article “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial” first and found that it helped to shape my understanding of Robinson’s story. The article stresses that stories are written in patterns with many metaphors and certain structures. I recognized this while reading Robinson’s story silently, but more so well reading out loud. King also claims that assumptions are dangerous (King 183). When I was reading his article, and came to this line about the dangers of assumptions, I found myself stop and reflect. I thought about how stories are dangerous because they cannot be taken back after they have been told and I also thought about how making assumptions about stories and people is dangerous. This reminded me of when I was taking a non-fiction poetry class. All of our assignments were based on the stories of our lives whether it was our relationships, experiences, attitudes, beliefs, values, etc. I found that often we would talk as a group, after reading out stories out loud sometimes or reading those of another person, about the importance of recognizing that these stories were real. I think that it is easy to make assumptions about stories and people, especially if we make them silently to ourselves. I think that stories can often be told from different perspectives and have different meanings for different people. I think that it was important to read Robinson’s story many times as reading it silently I was not able to feel the meaning behind words and themes or feel connections with its characters.

As I read Robinson’s story silently, I found myself becoming confused because of words being muddled together and the irregular, choppy and ungrammatical sentence structure. I also found that I had to read slower than I usually do in order to keep track of what was going on. I kept having to stop at the “and’s” when they were at the beginning of sentences and I noticed the repletion of words and events. Although I noticed the repetition, I did not find myself thinking further about its meaning until I read the story out loud. While reading silently I also found that the narrator’s constant explanation made me confused. Typically I enjoy reading detailed explanations because it helps me to understand, but when reading silently I found that the explanation merely hindered my ability to read and understand. Reading silently I also found that the layout of the story reminded me of poetry. I enjoy reading poetry out loud and find it difficult to read it silently so I figured that perhaps I would have an easier time reading Robinson’s story out loud as well. The hardest part for me while reading silently was not feeling any connections with characters and events going on. I felt like I wanted to feel connections, but that I could not because I was focused more on trying to read slowly enough to understand and not mix words together.

In my second reading of the story, as I read out loud I felt much more of a connection with the characters, themes, and events going on. I realized that there are different ways of conveying the story depending on how you read it. I recognized this when my fiancé was reading it out loud to me because we have very different performance styles. I felt like his style was less engaged and more focused on not messing up words or sentences while mine was more dramatic and I focused on making the story come alive. I think that this shows that a story can be read and interpreted differently depending on who is reading it. I also noticed that the oral syntax of the story goes against conventions of modern writing and I realized the significance of this. I think the story becomes more personal through the lack of convention because it felt more real than a story that has been edited to sound grammatically correct. I think that Robinson, through making this story only understandable through oral reading, is showing that stories need to be told no matter if they can be understood from different perspectives. I think he also emphasizes that details come alive through oral performance and I felt this as I could see Coyote in the canoe on the lake being chased, and picture him walking through the town, invisible to those around him. My attention on the story changed from its grammatical “mistakes” to the larger meaning behind the repetition of words such as “Coyote,” “Angel,” “God,” and “You,” seen on pages 66-67. The repetition of these words reminded me of how we use repetition in plays and speeches to remember what we need to say and to show the audience what is significant. As I was reading out loud, I felt like I was telling my own story, or perhaps re-telling a story I had heard orally and I enjoyed feeling this connection.

Thinking about the importance of oral communication, I found this video called “Recording History Through Oral Tradition.” I enjoyed this video because it highlights the importance of oral traditions through what the mother shows through gestures and tells her son about this, but also through the effect of having her voice be heard along with nature’s sounds.

I also found this Ted Talk by Seth Fairchild called “Native American Oral Storytelling & History.” While listening to Seth Fairchild speak about his own family’s stories, I found myself feeling more connected to the details of the stories through hearing them. He emphasizes the importance of knowing history in order to prevent repeating it and I think that this idea is often talked about in literature, but it appears more important when it is spoken out loud. I enjoyed how there were videos of people talking about their experiences and stories. I think this inclusion of other people’s stories emphasizes that we all have stories that are important to us and that can be important to others as well.

Works Cited:

King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism. Peterbough, ON: Broadview, 2004. 183- 190. Web. 04 April 2013.

Nysmuseum. “Recording History Through Oral Tradition.” YouTube. YouTube, 30 Sept. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3WLTYp4lPI. Accessed 19 Oct 2016.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. Print.

TEDxTalks. “Native American Oral Storytelling & History | Seth Fairchild | TEDxSMU.” YouTube. YouTube, 03 Nov. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JcKbN_GjCE. Accessed 19 Oct 2016.