In her article, “Green Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel,” Blanca Chester observes that “the conversation that King sets up between oral creation story, biblical story, literary story, and historical story resembles the dialogues that Robinson sets up in his storytelling performances (47). She writes:
Robinson’s literary influence on King was, as King himself says, “inspirational.” When one reads King’s earlier novel, Medicine River, and compares it with Green Grass, Running Water,Robinson’s impact is obvious. Changes in the style of the dialogue, including the way King’s narrator seems to address readers and characters directly (using the first person), in the way traditional characters and stories from Native cultures (particularly Coyote) are adapted, and especially in the way that each of the distinct narrative strands in the novel contains and interconnects with every other, reflect Robinson’s storied impact. (46)
For this blog assignment I would like you to make some comparisons between Harry Robson’s writing style in “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England” and King’s style in Green Grass, Running Water. What similarities can you find between the two story-telling voices? Coyote and God are present in both texts, how do they compare in character and voice across the stories?
God and Coyote; Coyote and God
If we combine Robinson and King’s stories of Coyote and God, you get a lovely picture of their relationship. As I see it, they’re almost like siblings. If we take King’s story and treat it as the beginning, the spunky “oral” creation story, told in between the contrasting third person narratives, sets the tone for the relationship between God and Coyote.
While God is helpful, though too proud to see Coyote in person, in Robinson’s story, God is a young and silly thing who grows out of coyote and grows up to spite Coyote. So it seems with God’s Christian followers. God himself disappears from the story quickly (after he jumps into the garden to run after his stuff), but there is a constant reminder of his presence, and Changing Woman is harassed by God’s men over and over. God’s men, like the depicted God himself, are all seen to be powerful, yet idiotic. From Noah’s Thou Shalt Have Breasts attitude to Ahab’s Moby-Jane episode, the Christian world seem full of jerks who are convinced they are right, and will bully anyone who breaks their rules (except themselves of course). Robinson’s king is no different in the way he lies.
Coyote, on the other hand, is a listener in both stories. He comes off as a little silly sometimes, since he asks a lot of questions in King’s stories. However, he is an integral part of the narrative of the creation story. He steps in for the listener and keeps the story interesting, interactive, and oral. Coyote in Robinson’s story is a bit different. We see him in third person, and he is the unquestionable listener: the one who never asks questions and takes things at face value.
This difference is actually remarkable. Keep in mind that in King’s story, Coyote is in a safe space. That is, a space without non-Indians, a space left behind by God. This is a space where stories can really thrive. You may say, “Hey. We don’t know that the storyteller is non-Indian,” and to which I reply, “With King’s command of the English language, the storyteller’s odd manner of speaking is no coincidence.” Now, Robinson on the other hand, Coyote is not there for the purpose of weaving a story. He has a mission and it involves non-Indians. There is no openness and it’s all formality.
Other Observations
- The rustic, old-timey settings contrasting sharply with random objects in anachronism: the camera in Robinson, and pizza and hot dogs in the Garden of Eden in King. I feel like these are things that storytellers are familiar with, and know that listeners are familiar with, so they put them in stories full of unfamiliar things. Make it more relatable? Humourous? Engaging?
- Henry’s style of speaking shows an imperfect understanding of English, but as I mentioned before King mimics this style in order to give it that feel of orality. All the imperfections of speech, like repetition, misuse of tenses, etc, are common.
- Lack of quotation marks perhaps point to a more casual and quick way of speech, mindless of specific who-said-its.
Bibliography
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: Harper Perennial Canada, 1993. Print
Robinson, Harry, and Wendy C. Wickwire.Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory. Vancouver: Talon, 2005. Print.