I’ve chosen pages 251-260 for my hyperlinking journey. Come with me through the links.

Blossom Lodge (251): Jane Flick connects Blossom, Alberta, the location of the lodge, with a story of King’s that features it as well, One Good Story, That One, as well as with a 1947 W.O Mitchell novel, Who Has Seen the Wind? (147). Like King’s book, Mitchell’s is broken up into four parts (McClay). The first blossom that comes to mind is a cherry blossom, and with a usual 5 leaves, perhaps King’s suggestion with Blossom, Alberta is that the story will continue after this story has been told, an always-present fifth part. Flick recognizes “natural beauty and regeneration, as well as the smallness of the town” in the name which also relies on the real-world blossom (147).

The lodge then is a way to visit Blossom. Most characters pass through the lodge before interacting with other characters or the town. Dr Hovaugh, Alberta, Charlie and others all make a stay at Blossom. The place is “lodged” between characters and the town/reserve/damn.

C.B. Cologne (251): Flick offers the spanish name of Christopher Columbus “Cristóbal Colón” (153). She also observes the pun on the kind of perfume as well as similarity to the director’s name, Cecil B. Demille (153). In the story, C.B. is an Italian that played Indian leads in the Western films Charlie’s father often competed for.

C.B. Cologne then represents a sort of pervasive European odour throughout representations of Native Americans. Christopher Columbus being the originator, and the C.B. Cologne the Italian being the sort of apex of the appropriation of Native American culture as he seems more fitting for the roles than real Native Americans.

Polly Hantos (251): Flick sees the direct resemblance to “Pocohontas” in this figure’s name. She is a character that is “waiting in the shadows of the major studios, working as extras, fighting for bit parts in Westerns, playing Indians again and again and again” (182). The loose adaption of the “Pocohontas” name shows how the Western aesthetic cares little about the authenticity of the original culture, only the recreation of easily digestible forms. The fact that Charlie struggles to recognize the figure referred to on this page, first comparing them to Cologne and then to Hantos, suggests that the marginalization of these parts is so severe that gender doesn’t even determine them from one another.

Barry Zanos (252): Jane Flick compares this name to Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian navigator and explorer who first sighted what is now New York (157). An interesting sonic quality of this name is also the possible “Bury Za Nose” or “Bury The Nose.” This could refer to Charlie’s father’s inability to get a role because of his nose and Barry Zanos position as a foil to him.

Sally Jo Weha (252): Consulting Flick first, this name resembles Sacajawea or “Bird Woman” or “Boat Woman,” a Shoshone woman “guide for Lewis and Clark” (157). As Charlie continues to search for the identity of the person he’s looking at he runs through the numerous characters that kept him and his father company in Hollywood. As a guide for two white men, Sacajawea represents another crossing point between Western and First Native culture that Charlie is attempting to navigate.

Johnny Cabot (252): Again Flick offers a useful reference to John Cabot or Giovanni Caboto the Italian who was credited with discovering “Canada and the mainland of North America” (157). It’s interesting that the showfolk that Charlie runs through are subtle references to European explorers, yet the Italian of the novel, C.B. Cologne refers to a spaniard while Cabot could have served nicely. I believe King is working with ambigious identities just as Charlie is working to resolve these identities. Charlie is exploring his past as he stares at the present incarnation of First Native past, one of the Four Indians.

Uncle Wally (252): Uncle Wally was a travelling salesman that appeared on Sesame Street from 1984 to 1992. He occassionally told “tall tales” and was one of the first adult believers of Big Bird’s Snuffleupagus (Muppet Wiki). Possibly a connection between children’s entertainment and the Four Indian’s “tall tales” or creation stories and their willingness to believe each other’s creation stories.

Uncle Wally may also refer to Wally Amos, founder of Famous Amos Chocalate Chip Cookies, which connects the offhand reference to Alberta’s father, “Amos” as well (King 255). Wally Amos’ cookie company eventually ran out out of business during the 80s. In this business figure light, Wally may represent Charlie’s disenfranchisement with corporate law as he feels out the hollowness of his relationships while returning to Blossom.

Amos (255): Amos was one of the Twelve Minor Prophets, figures present in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic holy text. A proponent of all men being equal under God, King’s naming of Amos as Alberta’s drunk father that left his family offers a negative realism to the religious figure’s belief. Amos the father represents the failure or absence of Amos the prophet’s teachings.

Duplessis (260): Maruice Duplessis served as premier of Quebec from 1936-39 and 1944-59. He’s often “referred to as le grande noirceur (the great darkness).” His actions contributed to the creation of “the first civil liberties groups in the country” (Canada’s Human Rights History). One such action was the transferring of orphans to psychiatric hospitals to secure more federal funding as it was more generous for hospitals rather than orphanages.

King chose a great villanous Canadian for the name of his foreboding, dam-building corporation. Along with the reference to the figure above, the name sounds like “duplicity,” a term easily attributed to government affairs with Natives and ceded or treatied land.

Work Cited:

“Amos, Wally 1937.” Contemporary Black Biography. Encyclopedia.com. 29 Nov. 2016

“Duplessis, Maurice 1890.” Canada’s Human Rights History. 29 Nov. 2016

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature  161-162. (1999). Web. Nov 15/2016.

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

McClay, Catherine. “Biocritical Essay.” The W.O. Mitchell Papers. 29 Nov. 2016

“Uncle Wally.” Muppet Wiki. 29 Nov. 2016.