In order to tell us the story of a stereo salesman, Lionel Red Deer (whose past mistakes continue to live on in his present), a high school teacher, Alberta Frank (who wants to have a child free of the hassle of wedlock—or even, apparently, the hassle of heterosex!), and a retired professor, Eli Stands Alone (who wants to stop a dam from flooding his homeland), King must go back to the beginning of creation. Why do you think this is so?
“It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”
-Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca
Thomas King’s acclaimed Green Grass, Running Water is an almost dizzyingly multi-layered story, unspooling numerous story threads, anchored by pop culture and sociopolitical benchmarks, all framed by an ongoing Indigenous Creation story – itself punctuated by bantering commentary by Coyote (both “Old” and contemporary), a satirically huffy Judeo-Christian depiction of God, and an ambiguous narrator figure (arguably King himself, breaking the narrative ‘fourth wall’ and interjecting as storyteller). But, acting as a piece of core connective tissue through the narrative Russian Doll of interacting stories and audiences is a notion of paradigm resistance that permeates each level of the increasingly metatextual novel.
On the surface, the disjunction between the characters and their array of conflicts and the grandiosity of King’s Creation narratives leads to the characters’ personal struggles feeling trite and unremarkable – comparatively not amounting to a hill of beans, in the Casablanca vernacular – in the face of the origin of life. However, what unifies all of the disparate story threads, is some notion of a frontier of resistance. All of King’s characters are seen, at some point in the novel, taking a stand against ideological conventions. Alberta’s steadfast decision to become a single mother leads to all manner of discrimination and scorn from friends, family, and especially the standardized medical system, depicted by King as almost incomprehensibly archaic (177). Eli, similarly, is depicted as softly countercultural radical by abandoning his stable but unfulfilling job as a university professor to occupy his childhood home in protest to it being torn down for the sake of a major dam, deflecting the political machinations of the government with gently obfuscating circular conversation about the weather (137). Even Lionel demonstrates a darkly comedic take on accidental resistance, when he is arrested for accidentally being strong-armed into partaking in (and being arrested at) an “American Indian Movement” protest in the United States (58-61) – an incident of sordid systemic discrimination that mars any trajectory in his later-life career.
Even King’s style of constructing and sequencing dialogue is pointedly atypical – and deceptively political in and of itself. King constantly depicts characters as having seemingly two simultaneous but seldom intersecting conversations, their concentric circles of communication occasionally wryly commenting on one another – but sometimes serving to avoid the conversation itself as a form of resistance. Take, for example, this exchange between Eli and Cliff Sifton, a government representative tasked with convincing Eli to relinquish his family home for the sake of expanding a local dam:
Sifton set his coffee cup on the railing. “You know, I always thought Indians were elegant speakers.”
“Storm’s coming.”
“But all you ever say is no. I come by every day and read that thing those lawyers thought up about voluntarily extinguishing your right to this house and the land it sits on, and all you ever say is no.”
“Be here by tonight.”
“I mean, no isn’t exactly elegant, is it?”
“Maybe get some hail, too.”
(137).
To King, Eli’s act of continuously, belligerently refusing to engage in the same conversation as Sifton is itself an active form of resistance – an act of, in the face of storied systemic discrimination, simply holding fast and consistently, peacefully, changing the subject. Apart from the obvious intertexts of Indigenous Canadians being uprooted from ancestral homes due to controversial and disputed land treaties (and acknowledging treaties is about the only time Eli and Sifton end up having the same conversation [138]), Eli’s pointed disruptions in the flow of Sifton’s attempting to steer the conversation back to hegemonic, colonial control prove microcosmic for King’s storytelling throughout Green Grass, Running Water.
Ultimately, it’s my take that the consistent intertexts of Creation story – and the meta-commentaries therein by Coyote, ‘God,’ and the Narrator – serve a similar narrative function to Eli’s taciturn changing of the subject. As discussed in previous blog entries, one of King’s primary preoccupations is dismantling the cultural hegemony of the Christian Creation story of Genesis, in favour of positing and popularizing alternate Indigenous Creation stories. In Green Grass, Running Water, King purposefully inverts the cultural hierarchy of Judeo-Christian Creation stories with a twinkle in his eye, re-writing Noah as a lecherous boor (145), to the dominant in-text Creation story of Changing Woman (145), and inverts “God” to “Dog” (an in-joke further amplified by both by the anchor setting of King’s “Dead Dog Café,” the alignment both comparing Christian ‘God’ to a consumable tourist trap and fast food substance, but also in that the ‘Dog’ in the eponymous cafe is a complete hoax…). In demonstrating the two Creation stories intertwining, King further amplifies the theme of cultural decolonialization, demonstrating the fluidity and instability of spiritual paradigms as equally amorphous to others.
But I think that King’s juxtaposition of Creation with the seemingly menial struggles of his contemporary characters additionally serves a second purpose: namely, to establish the psychic weight of centuries of microaggressions endured by all Indigenous Canadians in the face of consistent sociopolitical maneuvers designed to disempower and displace them, and functionally render them culturally extinct. By cross-cutting between his contemporary characters struggling to, in their own respective ways, resist the roadblocks of society (Alberta with her disinterested love triangle and systemically thwarted aspirations for childbirth; Eli and the dam; Lionel’s career aspirations constantly sucker-punched by a sordidly unwarranted criminal record from his accidental activism) and a retooled Creation myth similarly plagued by pesky, rude intrusions (namely, the Judeo-Christian figures), King crafts an overarching sense of tribulations and solidarity.
A Navaho depiction of Changing Woman – without clear indication of breast size. King’s Noah would be crestfallen.
By juxtaposing the Creation story’s Changing Woman’s journey from water to land in a canoe (badgered by sexual aggressor Noah) to Eli’s own troubles with (thankfully, less lusty) Noah surrogate Sifton, King seems to wryly imply the universality and timelessness of pesky, systemic obstacles to what should be a peaceful life – you can almost imagine King’s Narrator remarking ‘we had trouble keeping out of the water then, and we have trouble keeping out of the water now.’ Just as King’s contemporary characters each engage with stereotypical Western novels and films as a means of metaphorically contextualizing their own respective setbacks and discriminations, King’s juxtaposition of Creation myth and the stories of his contemporary characters serves to not only destabilize the Colonial dominance of the Christian Creation story – it equally speaks to the internalized narrative of Indigenous Canadians that irksome, endless systemic roadblocks and frustrations are, sadly, timelessly tantamount to existing as an Indigenous person, and unlikely to change any time soon.
I have yet to finish Green Grass, Running Water, and thus to see how King entwines his respective storylines and threads – a conflation seeming inevitable due to the four escaped Indigenous inmates, seemingly hopping between the spiritual and worldly realms of narrative. Still, I welcome all thoughts: do you think King’s juxtaposition of Creation and contemporary stories serves as an act of satirical resistance, and a means of empathy to the incessant political and systemic obstacles towards Indigenous life? Or is King’s stew of stories a means of rendering the tribulations of the contemporary characters all the sillier and more inconsequential in the face of the grandiosity of Creation? Regardless, one thing is indisputable: King can go down in history as the first scholar musing on metatextual spirituality to make such prolific use of the word “poop” (145) – a worthwhile and laudable moment in criticism, if none else.
-KH
WORKS CITED
American Indian Movement.Web. Accessed on March 5, 2019.
Casablanca (film). Dir. Michael Curtiz. Warner Bros, 1942.
“Changing Woman (Rainbow, Silver, and Crystal) – Navaho Creation.” Pinterest. Accessed on March 6, 2019.
Hatch, Kevin. “You Say Potato, I Say Creation.” ENGL 470 99C Blog. Web. Accessed on March 6, 2019.
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 1993. Print.
Hi Kevin,
Your analysis of Green Grass Running Water is engrossing, and I find it difficult to critique the points you made because they are very well explained. I was surprised to learn that you have yet to finish the book. If I understand your arguments correctly, I don’t think that King’s stew of stories functions as a means to render the tribulations of the contemporary characters as silly and more inconsequential in the face of Creation. You explain how the past layers the current tribulations with significant sociopolitical implications. And if we attempt to read this book in a way that breaks from linear time, then all these characters’ tribulations are connected and living with history.
I was also curious as to why you think King’s dialogue is “pointedly atypical?” You mention that “King constantly depicts characters as having seemingly two simultaneous but seldom intersecting conversations, their concentric circles of communication occasionally wryly commenting on one another.” I would think that this is typical of realistic dialogue and how people speak. I’m curious to know why you chose not to analyze the conversations between Coyote and the historical figures? Would you consider their dialogue to be more atypical?
Thank you for your excellent analysis.
Hi Nolan,
Thanks for this astute reply and critique. To clarify, I never intended to belittle the conflicts and tribulations of the characters in the novel – I was more querying, semi-rhetorically, whether King’s juxtaposition was meant to mutually poke fun at the histrionics of most Creation stories and a contemporary propensity to embellish the gravitas of day-to-day concerns (like Lionel, caught in a perennial ‘maybe I’ll go back to school someday…’ loop). For the most part, I agree with your analysis here that the two, conversely, that King uses the juxtaposition of the Coyote Creation story intertexts to imbue the storied weight of generations of oppression into the immediate conflicts of the novel’s characters, much in the same way as he treats various characters independently interacting with the entrenched cultural stereotyping of Westerns – almost as if to say ‘all this, AND my car is missing.’ If anything, the slew of Indigenous Creation stories Coyote and King’s narrator cycle through are all similarly treated fairly matter-of-factly as a series of sequential events, so I’d argue that’s additional evidence towards conflating the various levels of text, and generally feeding into King’s overarching gentle critique of spirituality – the notion that we imbue such heightened significance into characters experiencing events much in the same way that Alberta, Lionel, Charlie, Eli, and the rest of the ‘current day’ characters do. Perhaps the conflation even serves to suggest King positing that their stories, told in a different context, could serve as tantamount to similarly inspiring Creation parables unto themselves?
In terms of the dialogue, I did find it really interesting that many conversations held by odd pairings of ‘contemporary characters’ that could serve as feasibly antagonistic (Eli/Cliff; Dr. Hovaugh/Babo, etc.) mirrored this same structure of having two conversations that parallel each other but don’t quite intersect (my copy of the book has an interview with King at the back, where the interviewer draws attention to this: “Your characters often speak along separate tangents. They end up talking around subjects instead of talking to one another” [postscript 9-10] – not sure if other copies have this interview, but it’s really interesting and revelatory). Conversely, many of the conversations between the historical figures and King’s ‘narrator’ follow much more conventional structure in that they exchange phrases that actually respond to one another – whereas it’s Coyote who seems to continuously try to interject, responding to bits in the conversation pages too late, or contributing unrelated details, in a playful, teasing fashion. In reading Coyote, I was often reminded of a more active version of Steve Buscemi’s character Donny in The Big Lebowski, constantly trying to participate, but being effectively half-ignored by the rest of the conversation – albeit in a more consciously playful and irreverent rather than obtuse fashion in Coyote’s case.
The reason for this discrepancy, in my opinion (and I enthusiastically invite other perspectives!), is my earlier point of King using dialogue as pointed intervention. Whether it be Eli’s conversational non-participation, or the ‘narrator’ and historical figures trying to align a consistent Creation story despite Coyote’s attempts to teasingly poke at them, King consistently treats dialogue less like a game of tennis (traditional ‘back-and-forth’) than the participants constantly dodging volleys. This definitely feeds into a larger theme in the book that there can be equal power in active actions (taking the film out of George’s camera at the Sun Dance) as much as active inaction (Eli steadfastly refusing to abandon his childhood home)… but also that Coyote’s mischief can unravel best made plans either way.
I’ve since finished the novel since writing this post, and am still mulling over King’s authorial intentions – but I appreciate this dialogue as a forum to do so and compare notes. Thanks for your thoughts and wisdom!
I really enjoyed your response, Kevin! You have a terrific writing style that is both academic and humorously inviting!
In response to your question, I don’t think King’s juxtaposition trivializes the issues faced by the characters- at no point did I feel that Alberta’s, Lionel’s, or Eli’s issues are trivial. Yes, they may seem “small” in the face of Creation, but these issues (motherhood, search for identity, fighting for our beliefs…) are based on values that come from the very Beginning. After all, isn’t Alberta’s desire to create life just a smaller version of a creation story? Character who DO seem trivialized are those who buy in to the “cultural hegemony”. Bill Bursum comes across as a joke, Dr.Hovaugh’s frantic search for the Indians is inane, and George Morningstar seems concerned about the most minor of problems.
I do think that King’s use of juxtaposition wants to draw attention to the absurdity of much of the Judeo-Christian cultural hegemony (the very idea of God seems to have come from a silly dream experienced by the even sillier Coyote). King definitely seems to enjoy breaking down cultural norms and expectations. While I was raised in a Catholic family, I’m not a religious person. Therefore I do not consider much in the religious world to be sacred. But I wonder, do you think King’s depiction of certain Judeo-Christian characters would offend some? And if so, how might this be different from George’s attempt to disrespect the Sun Dance through the use of photography?
Hi Marianne,
Thanks for your kind words, and on-point analysis of the novel. I agree on all counts (and will piggyback off my response to Nolan above in regards to the aforementioned ‘trivialization’ of the character’s immediate struggles, and their metaphoric weight). I definitely had a great laugh at the character-non-arcs of Bill, George, and especially Dr. Hovaugh, who contributes so little to the plot it’s almost a joke that he’s involved at all. I think a big part of King’s intention is to point out that such bumbling participants in the ‘cultural hegemony’ as you eloquently put it have the sociopolitical and ideological power to occupy such roles of authority despite such inane inabilities to impact the narrative… or anything really. It’s basically King furthering the joke that the Duncan Scotts of the world can afford to be misguided, navel-gazing fussy fools by nature of being privileged, powerful, middle-aged white men, and their self-determined preoccupations for order (whether Dr. Hovaugh’s garden or Bill Bursom’s wall of televisions or lusting for a lakeside cabin) can occupy so much of their attention they can be completely ignorant to the more serious problems of their less privileged fellow people – or worse: actively contribute to said problems. You’re very right to raise these characters as significant by contrast, and I regret not doing so in my initial blog (alas, only so many words and hours in the day…).
In regard to your commentary on King’s poking fun at Judaeo-Christian spiritual traditions… well, in short, I think being offended is subjective, and I guarantee many would be offended by King’s take, gently satirical spoof that it is (the book, after all, ends with his tongue-in-cheek ‘apology,’ courtesy of the wandering Indigenous elders…). I think George’s attempt to photo-document the Sun Dance is pointedly different by nature of the fact that he knew the participating community would find his doing so blasphemous (more than King’s comparatively gentle and irreverent take on Jesus, God, Noah, etc.), and sneered in the face of their ‘old-fashioned’ (in his words) beliefs for the sake of making a quick buck. Similarly, there’s also the obvious power imbalance in terms of cultural prevalence and ideological power between the Judeo-Christian and Indigenous Creation narratives, and, as in The Truth About Stories, I think it’s clear that King is using humour and satire to try to ‘level the playing field’ somewhat, poking fun at the former and elevating the latter. I had a good laugh at Coyote explaining the Biblical Creation narrative as “I think I read that in a book once,” though – there are so many different levels of breaking the fourth wall in the Coyote asides that my head started to hurt trying to track them all. King is an incredibly clever and enjoyable author. Thanks for these thoughts here, Marianne, and have a wonderful night!