5) 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?
Like Blanca Chester states, it is clear that Harry Robinson’s voice as recorded in Living By Stories inspired Thomas King while he wrote his novel Green Grass, Running Water. Both King and Robinson’s stories about Coyote and God forces you to slow down and read carefully. You are made to appreciate the format of the writing, and reading it quickly takes away the rich orality present on the page. As Georgia put in this blog post, “[i]t was impossible to skim the phrases; rather, I had to voice every word within my head. It felt wrong to read the story rather than hear it. The style, the spacing, the colloquialisms and individual quirks of speech made it seem far more of an oral tale than a written one” (Masaki). I completely agree with this observation, and feel it was the same in the Coyote sections of King’s novel. I find reading it carefully helps me really absorb the words on the page, and because the stories are written this way it is the next best to hearing them orally recited. In the Coyote stories the writing comes across as less academic, more casual, and very conversational. The grammar is poor, specifically in moments of first person writing (“I says” [King 38], “I seen him twice” [Robinson 81]), and both stories are filled with incomplete sentences. This all aids in the conversational aspects, and does not deter from the quality of the story. In fact, I believe this oral authenticity only strengthens the stories’ poignancey, while at the same time exhibiting them as thoughtful pieces of Indigenous storytelling.
God and Coyote are both present in each story, and they function in similar as well as differing ways. Like when I first read Robinson, the blending of an Indigenous story with biblical elements is entertaining and took me off guard again when reading King. In both stories, God is an omnipresent entity guiding specific plot moments while Coyote is a mythological character taking centerstage. God is a force that pushes along characters such as Coyote or First Woman, and Coyote acts as a neutral party, portraying a passive protagonist who is guided along by other forces (be that the unnamed narrator in King’s novel or God in Robinson’s story). Although there are similarities, the characters of God and Coyote differ in each storyteller’s story. In Robinson’s story, God appears more like the Christian God; he is absent (sends an angel to speak with Coyote), stoic, and unequivocal in his message. The angel delivers Coyote God’s message to write Indian laws with the King of England, and then leaves Coyote to complete this mission. In King’s novel, God is far more human. He’s unsure of his surroundings (“Where did all this water come from?”, “What happened to my void?” [King 38]), and when First Woman and Ahdamn have a picnic in the garden with the food they stole from God, God starts throwing a tantrum and threatens First Woman and Ahdamn, claiming they are “going to be very sorry” because “[t]here are rules, you know” (King 69). I believe Robinson’s God is more Christian because they appear as they would in biblical stories, whereas while much about King’s character of God is also biblically accurate, they are portrayed as a caricature of the classic.
Works Cited
Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Random House of Canada Limited, 2004.
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 1993.
Leiper, Alice. “The Passive Protagonist,” Ally’s Desk (blog), 15 April 2013, https://aliceleiper.com/2013/04/15/the-passive-protagonist/. Accessed 28 February 2020.
Masaki, Georgia. “Assignment 2.6: Harry Robinson’s Interfusional Literature,” Oh Canada (blog), https://blogs.ubc.ca/georgiamasaki/2020/02/19/assignment-2-6-harry-robinsons-interfusional-literature/?fbclid=IwAR29yv9Us3pBqkWZVdvR1WeJO7kscrNwANgFeiy0FcuIxux22A0YUeZMui0. Accessed 28 February 2020.
Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books, 2005. Print.
Hi Jacob,
Oh my goodness! I think this might be the first time I’ve ever been cited. The thrill of seeing my name in brackets is nearly enough incentive to go into academia. Thanks for including my thoughts in your work!
I enjoyed your thoughtful comparison of these two pieces. I think it’s beautiful to read King’s work, knowing how he was influenced by Robinson and his respect for the Indigenous storyteller’s authentic voice.
I particularly enjoyed your comparison of Robinson’s and King’s depiction of the Christian God. Why do you think that King chose to satirize God? Do you think it is because he had more freedom of voice than Robinson, because of his status as a white-passing man? Or because of his privilege as an established and respected writer and thinker? Or, perhaps, because King is writing during a period where Christianity has less authority than when Robinson was writing? All food for thought.
It makes me smile when I picture a young Thomas King attending Catholic school and imagining God in the same way he writes Him in his stories. Can you imagine?
Georgia,
Your writing is excellent! It was easy to find an insightful, inspiring quote to build my own argument off of.
As someone who was baptised Catholic and went to Catholic school from kindergarten until high school graduation, I resonate with King’s portrayal of the Christian God. Perhaps because I am someone who does not follow a Catholic faith as an adult I also view God in a way portrayed in the novel: temperamental, sensitive, and overdramatic. Let’s be real – God is a very reactionary divine being, and could probably do well with some meditation or yoga. So to answer your question: I believe King portrays God this way because King has a different relationship to God than Robinson did; Robinson clearly takes God less seriously than Robinson did likely because of his own relationship with Them. King also wrote his novel in a more contemporary time, perhaps during which the perspective of God had shifted to be more critical of the stoic and intimidating deity.
I love that thought. Perhaps King never took Christianity seriously while attending Catholic school, and that has resonated as an adult who gets to write characters in published literature. There may have been some obligatory respect while he was in school, but that clearly has not stayed with him as an adult.
Hi Jacob,
I enjoyed the ways in which you further examined the connection between Robinson’s storytelling and King’s novel. It made me think of the reading on Lee Maracle about Salish literary criticism, where she discusses the examination of ourselves and our society through the reading of old stories. Could a similar mode of literary understanding been what was created if we see King’s novel as a response to Robinson’s story? If so what do you think was the understanding King reached about Robinson’s story?
Thanks for the comment, Sophie! I think King drawing inspiration from Robinsons was very much a new literary understanding of the stories being told, the cultures that are telling them, and the societies they are being told in. I think King’s stories drawing on Robinson’s is a very Indigenous method of storytelling, as far as I understand what I have learned in this class; King is taking a story and adapting it to the time he is writing it. To me it seems like a contemporary example of how Indigenous stories shift and adapt to meet the requirements society has for them. I would be interested to know what King knew about oral stories recreated as literature before he was introduced to Robinson’s work. I imagine that after reading Robinson, King was inspired to continue Indigenous storytelling tradition and continue the adaptation of them into literacy, therefore making them more accessible and preserving the culture that they articulate.
Hi Jacob,
You mention that Coyote, while having similar voices, has different functions. Personally, I enjoyed King’s depiction of God because he is more human, just like you said. I often find that the representations of God as closer to humanity give a story an air of assuredness and realness. I was wondering if there was a particular depiction that you were more endeared to and why?