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.