Prompt:
5.  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?

I thought this would be a good thing to discuss because of my main interests laying in writers and how they create the effects they desire in their work. I’ve also been writing quite a bit for this course on King’s works and my last post was discussing Robinson’s techniques, it seemed like an obvious choice.

From just a simple glance, you can notice graphological similarities in both works. Neither of them looks like a conventional novel, as it takes on the appearance similar to a script. As I’ve talked about it in my last post, Robinson places a line break at the end of each sentence, and although they look similar, King’s work doesn’t abide by such rules. In King’s work, these line breaks occur conventionally at the end of usual paragraphs, however, the reason it still looks similar is due to the amount of dialogue there is within this book. In fact, the majority of the book is a dialogue between two or more characters, usually exchanging short sentences. The effect of this is a bit similar in both stories, as it keeps the story full of voices, rather than prose.

The narrator is a character in both stories, although neither narrators take part within the story itself. Of course, in King’s novel, the narrator does interact with Dog God and Coyote, he still mostly serves as the observer of what’s happening. Both the characters will often share opinions with the readers and at times, address them directly. This creates the effect of the readers feeling like they have a more personal stake to the story, rather than just a passer-by that happened to look upon the story.
Green Grass, Running Water is especially interesting because it utilizes different styles depending on which character we are focusing on. When we are with Coyote, the narrative style consists of a lot of repetitions, and conversational language, to no surprise, like Robinson’s story about Coyote. When focusing on the tribal elders telling their origin story, the style is also different with unusually short lines, and barebones prose. Then, while telling the stories of other characters, the story feels more akin to a normal novel with a bit more prose accompanying the dialogues. These changes display different storytelling styles, exemplifying the theme of differences in stories that are all equally true. Another effect this has is to ease the readers into the perspective switches, as King tend to jump around quite abruptly.

Coyote and God are presented in both stories in a similar way. For both of them, God attempts to order around Coyote, which Coyote ends up trying to satisfy with some reluctance. They don’t have a very close relationship, and if given the choice, Coyote would like to be left alone, but their companionship is inevitably tied together. Both stories present Coyote as a lover of sleep and a trickster, while God being a forceful character who desires things to be completed as soon as possible. These characters are therefore forced to find a compromise between the two people, but rather than working together, they work to deceive the other party and neither are happy for it. These themes in both stories at the end bleed into the real world, as we see Robinson’s story ending with the narrator sharing his thoughts on the land disputes, and in King’s story the dam being forcefully built in the reserves end up coming down due to an earthquake.

I found it interesting that both of these authors chose the coyote to represent Native Americans in these stories, as there are many other choices for characters within their history. Although he is amongst the most popular characters, I don’t think this was the main reason for their choice. Coyote, the character, was often used as a moral to teach about those who are willing to deceive to get what they want. They are also shown to be quite human, creative, giving into vices, unpredictable, and possible of both good and evil. I think partly, this is why both authors decided to utilize the coyote, as it is a creator of sorts that offer itself as an interesting foil to the Judeo-Christian God who is serious, blunt, “perfect”, and overall inhumane.

Why do you think both authors chose the Coyote? Or do you have any other thoughts about these stories? Let me know!

Citations

CrashCourse. “Coyote and Raven, American Tricksters: Crash Course World Mythology #22.” Youtube, 12 Aug. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAKHGe6x8n8.

Hauser, Elyse. “Greek Mythology and the Judeo-Christian God.” Sensible Reason, 22 Nov. 2014, sensiblereason.com/greek-mythology-judeo-christian-god/.

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

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Prompt: 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 story.

Writing dialogue provides interesting challenges for writers. You obviously don’t want your dialogue to come off stilted and robotic, so we are drawn to finding how to write realistic dialogue. One of the common advice is to go out and listen to people talk, but interestingly enough, if you really listen to people talk in a casual setting, you’d find that it makes for quite awful dialogue written on the page. People pause to say umm-s all the time, utilize useless phrases such as “like” way more often than we’d like to admit, have incorrect grammar, use the wrong word, conversations are cyclical and can take forever to get to the point. In normal conversation, we easily overlook these small mistakes, so easily in fact, that most of the times we don’t even notice them. But written on the page, where every word can be closely inspected, these types of purely realistic dialogues are annoying to read. The solution is to obviously find a middle ground where we can keep each individual’s’ speech patterns, manners, and intent unique while making it a smooth and concise read.

   This middle ground is absolutely subjective to the writer themselves. In my last semester’s writing course, our professor Timothy Taylor advised us not to write out the accents as it makes things harder to read—so rather than writing “we gon’ huntin’”, do “we’re going hunting”—and just refer to the character’s accent in the prose, as the readers will imagine the accents themselves. While on the other hand, writers like Charles Dickens (it’s kind of a weird example, but I happened to have just finished Our Mutual Friend) will write out weird speech patterns, confusing or not.

   I bring this up because I believe Harry Robinson’s writing really pushes this middle ground to the very edge. Most written stories, even ones told in first person present tense, almost always feels like you are still reading a record of events. However, for Robinson’s stories, I can’t not imagine someone—the narrator—sitting in front of me, telling me this story. There is a raw uneditedness to his stories, not to say they aren’t polished, but purposely full of little mistakes that you wouldn’t find in a normal book.

   The first aspect that I identified is that his entire story is a dialogue already (meaning that any dialogue within the story is a dialogue within dialogue). He does this by the narrator opening up a conversation with the reader with frequent reminders of it. At the start of You Going to Get Married to Coyote’s Son, the narrator says this: “The next stories, that’s another Coyote. That’s another young Coyote. Not the same one … goes up to the moon. That’s not him. This is another one.” (47) and at the end of the story, the narrator says, “Now, here’s another story…” (63) as we are led into the next short story. Through including the reader by addressing them directly, they make them a part of the story, as the listener-storyteller relationships are one of the things that make oral storytelling so unique.

   Another prominent aspect is the amount of repetition in the story. Look at this section near the start of Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England, “And one time, they see somebody on the water. They could see somebody. Looks like somebody was sitting on the boat. There was smoke. They got a fire. And they wanted to get closer. They wanted to know what that was. Looks like a person.” it’s essentially saying the same couple of ideas in different ways many times over. This is brilliant in a couple of ways, first of all, by keeping the sentences quite distinct every line, it prevents the story from feeling too repetitive. Secondly, by utilizing these repetitions, we create an atmosphere as if we are listening to someone tell a story. The reason why we end up repeating so much is that unlike a book, the listener can’t go back to find the word they missed or misunderstood, so for an oral story, important moments has to be highlighted a few times to make sure there isn’t anyone that missed it.

   Robinson also utilizes short sentences (as short as one word), composed entirely of short, conversational words, broken up into its individual lines. The short sentences and conversational words make the story feel like it’s naturally spoken, also it’s another technique that prevents the listeners from getting confused. The line breaks are there to give the story a sort of a rhythm, a pause between lines to slow down the reader, or in an oral situation, give the storyteller a moment to take a breath and for listeners to absorb the recent information.

   Finally, speech patterns are pushed hard. There are constant errors like “That boat supposed to go very fast.” (66) and shortened phrases like “see ‘em” (66). These patterns are heavily applied to the point I could hear the narrator in my head when reading silently.

The missing words and awkward sentences can get a bit confusing at times, but—and here’s the best part—they are not a problem when reading it out loud or, especially, listening to it. That speech conditioning that I talked about earlier—about how we easily ignore common errors within speech—kicks right in here. In that way, by utilizing all these techniques (and many more that I haven’t noticed, I’m sure) the writer compels the reader to read the words out loud, and it feels so natural to do so. When I do, I also take on the speech patterns of the narrator as if possessed and they are speaking through me, reminding me of the connection between the words grammar and grimoire. I like to think that this connection implies the ability for writers to create magic through their words and I haven’t seen such a strong example as this.

What do you think about this? Are there any other techniques that you noticed or something you disagree with? Let me know!

Citations

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

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

Sullivan, Kate. “Found Dialogue: Using the Art of Eavesdropping for Better Fiction.” TCK Publishing, www.tckpublishing.com/better-dialogue-through-eavesdropping/.

Quinion, Michael. “Grimoire.” World Wide Words, 15 Mar. 2014, www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-gri2.htm.

Prompt:

We began this unit by discussing assumptions and differences that we carry into our class. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption?

I would answer yes to all of the above. I would say yes, he is assuming both, that most of his readers belong to the European tradition and that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances—than the other way around. I, again, would say yes, you are being fair to point out this assumption, and Lutz is fair to make the assumption. I think these assumptions are partly due to the book’s intended audience and the European genocide of Indigenous culture.

First of all, let’s think of this book and its intended audience: people that are of, or familiar with European tradition. The most obvious evidence for this is that it is published in English, and even if you aren’t a native English speaker, to learn the language to the level needed to read and understand an academic book like this requires a long time of using the language. To further this point, there is no better substitute for learning to read a language than, quite obviously, reading. This means that people reading this textbook will be quite familiar with European tradition due to having read a decent amount of its stories. Me, someone who isn’t of European tradition, is more familiar with it than my Asian traditions, having lived my entire teenage and adult life in Canada. This makes me a blend of two traditions, it is simply unavoidable as someone who lives here. Also, I’m attending UBC, which, even with all the effort to decolonize, is still very much of an education facility catering to the European tradition.

Which brings me to the next point, it’s an academic textbook and thusly it is aimed towards academics, possibly many of them students like ourselves attending a western university. How do you enter a western academic facility? Through good marks and studying, of course. And how much are we taught and tested on Indigenous performances and storytelling? Virtually none. This means, even if you are of Indigenous background, the reader of this text would most likely be partially of European tradition, or at the very least familiar with it. With being taught so much of European stories in school, and so little of Indigenous stories, for people of our time, it is a sad fact that European stories are indeed easier to understand than understanding something “alien in culture”.

My final point is how much damage that has been done to the Indigenous culture by the Europeans, and that there is lasting cultural damage that is still felt today. As mentioned in the lesson, the Potlatch ban lasted nearly seventy-five years, long enough that majority of the population that was familiar with the tradition to be dead by the time the law was lifted. Of course, we can’t forget about the residential schools, an attempt to exterminate the Indigenous culture within the young of their population. During this time, much of Indigenous culture was lost and later had to be recovered. Now, they are left with reserves which are known for its terrible infrastructure and financial conditions, forcing most Indigenous people to live outside of reserves. In the US, Indian Relocation Act of 1956, pushed many of the Indigenous people off of reserves as well, forcing them into the cities. In such situations, many of these people begin to lose parts of their culture.

With so much damage has been done to the Indigenous culture, even today, most of their people are forced to follow European traditions. So is it wrong for Lutz to assume his readers would be more familiar with European traditions than Indigenous? I don’t think so.

Citations

Indigenous Corporate Training. “Potlatch Ban: Abolishment of First Nations Ceremonies.” Indigenous Corporate Training Inc, 16 Oct. 2012, www.ictinc.ca/the-potlatch-ban-abolishment-of-first-nations-ceremonies.

Penner, Dylan. “Federal Party Leaders Urged to End Drinking Water Crisis in First Nation Communities Once and for All.” Council of Canadians, 13 Oct. 2015, canadians.org/media/federal-party-leaders-urged-end-drinking-water-crisis-first-nation-communities-once-and-all.

Milke, Mark. “Increasing Number of Aboriginals Choose Not to Live on Reserves.” Fraser Institute, www.fraserinstitute.org/article/increasing-number-aboriginals-choose-not-live-reserves.

Whittle, Joe. “Most Native Americans Live in Cities, Not Reservations. Here Are Their Stories.” The Guardian, 4 Sept. 2017, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/04/native-americans-stories-california.

CBC News. “Fear of Losing Culture Rises among Indigenous People in Manitoba.” CBC, 12 June 2017, www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/more-than-half-manitoba-indigenous-culture-eroding-1.4156978.

I’m honestly amazed at how eye-opening this assignment was. People really opened up and shared lots about themselves that gave me an additional insight on how to view people. Home is so much more of a fickle topic than I realized, and I even surprised myself writing my own blog post about it. The word, when heard in passing, is such a casual word I don’t think much about, but this class is really forcing us to dive deep within our memories and values to determine aspects about ourselves and surroundings.

There are a few things that I found in common within many of people’s ideas of home, regardless if they don’t have it, have it, or had it.

These are:

-Time: How long we stayed in the location.

-Safety: Varying widely from physical harm to social judgement, home is somewhere we feel safe.

-Family: Having people we love and trust surround us—parents, siblings, partners, pets…

-Friends: Being in the proximity of others that share our value—teams, social hobbies, religion…  

-Building/Room/Space: Somewhere we can make our own. This varied widely from ownership of property to hanging things on walls.

-Nation: From a single nation to many, a nation we can say we belong to.

-Familiar population/scenery: Nature, urban landscapes, nostalgic places, a location we can remember even after years away.

-Relaxation: Somewhere we can kick out shoes off and let go.

The differences didn’t come from what people thought of home—we seemed to have that down pretty consistent—but of which value we weighed more than others. There are people who needed to customize their room so it didn’t feel so lonely, and although this is a sentiment that I agree with, I’ve never been the type of person to hang up pictures or decorate.

I think time had the biggest factor in determining people’s view of home. They say, “we want what we can’t have”, and it was tragically funny how true that was. People that stayed in the same place their entire life didn’t feel much sense of identity because they felt that they didn’t have much to compare it to, so they would like to move and experience different homes. On the other hand, there are lots of people that moved multiple times at a young age, that don’t feel like they stayed anywhere long enough to belong, and just want to find a place to settle.

Something that was incredibly clear when reading these posts is how helpless we were as children (here’s an interesting blog post about respecting children’s autonomy). Most of the class are in their early twenties and we’ve only (relatively) recently came into control of our own lives. So much of what we define as home was forced upon us as children, and I loved reading about what people are doing with their newly gained autonomy. I hope one day when I’m raising children of my own, I can provide for them a place where they can think back with fondness rather than confusion.

Citations

Ingraham, Christopher. “Moving as a Child Can Change Who You Are as an Adult.” Medium, Washington Post, 17 June 2016, medium.com/@washingtonpost/moving-as-a-child-can-change-who-you-are-as-an-adult-c40e46740156.

Sara. “Freedom Is Not Conditional: 8 Ways to Tell If You’Re Respecting Your Child’s Autonomy.” Happiness Is Here, WordPress, 16 May 2017, happinessishereblog.com/2017/05/freedom-not-conditional-8-ways-tell-youre-respecting-childs-autonomy/.