Thomas King’s novel Green Grass Running Water takes after Harry Robinson’s oral style in “Coyote Make a Deal with the King of England” in a number of interesting ways. The most obvious is the oral nature of both texts, even though King’s text is not actually spoken. This style is characterized by short sentences, many ‘and’s at the beginnings of sentences, and colloquial utterances like ‘okay’ and ‘you know’ scattered throughout the stories. This style is also punctuated by normal human errors or slips in storytelling such as forgetting details or needing to start over. Beyond these more obvious stylistic similarities, I’d like to focus on the fluid timeframe, the role of the listener and the storyteller, and characterizations of Coyote and God. 

Time
In Wendy Wickwire’s introduction to Harry Robinson’s Living by Stories she describes her journey exploring the timeframe of Indigenous stories. Robinson’s stories take place across a vast timeline from stories at the beginning of time that appear ahistorical and timeless, to contemporary stories with specifically historical details. Robinson’s stories also put Western conceptualizations of linear time into question. His stories are not told chronological order from the beginning of time to present day. They are told however he feels they need to be told. Contemporary details are also added to older more mythological stories like Wickwire’s example of Robinson learning about the moon landing and then adding Neil Armstrong into his story about Coyote son’s journey to the “upper world” (Robinson 29). 

Like Robinson, King’s novel Green Grass, Running Water exists in a fluid and changing time zone. One moment Coyote and God and First Woman are creating the world through a story that is both Indigenous and biblical, the next moment professor Alberta Frank is discussing Indigenous history in a lecture hall filled with embodiments of historical figures, and the next moment a gathering of iconic literary characters work to figure out how to tell the story of creation. What strikes me in this novel is the true fluidity of these settings. These stories are not distinguished by different chapters or even different paragraphs. They morph into one another seamlessly and overlap. If you lose focus for a moment while reading you’ve entered another story. At pages 49 – 50  fo Green Grass, Running Water we see a great example of this overlap:

“Where did the water come from?” said Alberta.
“Where did the water come from?” said Patrolman Delano.
“Where did the water come from? “ said Sergeant Cereno.
“Where did the water come from?” said Lionel.
“Forget the water,” says Coyote.

Alberta is referencing the pickup truck in water in a memory of her father. Patrolman Delano is asking about the water in Babo’s retelling of the story of creation. Sergeant Cereno is referencing water in a creation story retold by Dr. Hovaugh, and Lionel is referencing a puddle of water he’s stepped into while picking up hitchhikers. In this moment they come together across story lines to ask the same question and we see how they are, perhaps, not separate stories at all. Blanca Chester writes that in King’s work “fragmented texts contextualize each other, creating meaning in gaps that cannot be read linearly” (47). Like Robinson’s cyclical and tangential orality these stories become part of a whole understanding, as opposed to individual stand-alone pieces. 

Listener and Storyteller

Both Robinson and King create a relationship between storyteller and listener (reader). Both texts have first person narrators  who sometimes speak to the audience referring to the reader or listener as “you.” Through this exchange, the reader is brought into the world of the story and, as Chester writes, “ultimately transformed into another character”(46). 

This voice of the narrator not only highlights the role of the listener as part of the story but brings the storyteller in the story. Robinson and King as storytellers are present within their works. Robinson’s unique voice demonstrates this well enough, but another example is when he is unsure of specific details within his story:

“Then, they have this book four of them.
That’s about, could be somewhere 1850.
Somewhere around that time.
I couldn’t be sure.
I like to find that out some of these days” (79).

Compare this with the following excerpt from King:

“So that’s the way the story starts,” I says. “That’s the way it is beginning.”
No, no, says that GOD. That’s not the way it starts at all. It starts with a void. It starts with a garden.
“Stick around,” I says. “That garden will be here soon.”
Hallelujah, says that GOD.
“Is Old Coyote going to make that good garden?” says Coyote.
“Not likely,” I says. “Can we continue?” (22).

Both narrators are working to express their stories clearly, grappling with memory and details, and letting us into the process of storytelling with them.

It is interesting to compare this present storyteller and included listener with Western history books that seem to have no storyteller and exist regardless of reader. These stories of history are treated as undeniable facts with no teller present, existing outside the possibility of human expression, forgetfulness, tangents or intention. 

Coyote and God

The characters of Coyote and God in the stories of King and Robinson are depicted somewhat differently, but it is the relationship between these two characters that is most interesting. In “Coyote makes a Deal with the King of England” Coyote is quite responsible and dutiful. He is given a task to complete from an angel of God and he goes to complete it right away without any hesitation. While meeting with the King of England he is clear and powerful, creating a threatening illusion with powers given by God. King’s version of coyote is a stark contrast: excitable, self-focused, and foolish. Coyote is often distracted and easily set off course by any mention of food. Robinson’s God is an unseen character within this story. Represented by an angel, God orders Coyote to do a job and bestows on him some powers to help him complete the task. King’s GOD is territorial, demanding and petulant, arguing about the way the story is being created. 

In Robinson’s story God and Coyote are written as separate characters but Robinson expresses a number of times that the words Coyote speaks are God’s thoughts. He reminds us of this multiple times, drawing a link between Coyote and God, perhaps not as separated characters as we had thought. King takes this a step further. GOD in King’s story is a version of Coyote, Coyote’s dream, who comes alive and wants to control the world. Coyote says that this dream cannot also be called Coyote but it could be a dog. But the dream becomes mixed up and instead becomes a god. Then, in a show of particular childishness:

But why am I a little god? shouts that god.
“Not so loud,” says Coyote. “You’re hurting my ears.”
I don’t want to be a little god, says that god. I want to be a big god!
“What a noise,” says Coyote. “This dog has no manners.”
Big one!
“Okay, okay,” says Coyote. “Just stop shouting.”
There, says that GOD. That’s better.

In Teresa Gilbert’s article entitled “Written Orality in Thomas King’s Short Fiction” King is quoted saying, “In reading Robinson, one is virtually forced to read the story out loud, thereby closing the circle, the oral becoming the written becoming the oral.” All three of the comparisons I made between the texts of Robinson and King point toward this cyclical nature. Time moves away from linear chronology toward a fluid setting that loops and cycles. Listener and storyteller emerge and converge as King described so aptly. And the characters of Coyote and God vary and overlap, Coyote speaking God’s thoughts and GOD born of Coyote’s dreams. 

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Works Cited

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver,  Talon Books, 2005.

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

Chester, Blanca. “Green Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel.” Canadian Literature, 161-162, Summer/Autumn, 1999, 44-61. https://canlit.ca/article/green-grass-running-water/. Accessed March 12, 2021.

Gilbert, Teresa. “Written orality in Thomas King’s short fiction.” Journal of the Short Story in English, 47, Autumn, 2006. https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/792#quotation. Accessed March 12, 2021.