Regarding question six, while reading Thomas King’s novel Green Grass, Running Water, the first name I came across that I stuttered over in my mind was Ahdamn. I actually wasn’t the one to read this name aloud. Funny enough, I was explaining to my boyfriend how different it is to read silently versus orally while reading Green Grass, Running Water, and so he flipped to a random page of my book and started reading to me. When he came to Ahdamn’s name, he quickly looked it over, repeated it once or twice, and continued on. That was the moment when the name and its allusion connected for me. Of course, looking at a word and sounding it out in your head is sometimes different than sounding it out with your voice, and so I realized Ahdamn was also Adam, just spelt differently. Ahdamn, of course, refers to Adam from Genesis, which was made more clearly as I continued to read, but upon first glance, I was unable to connect the two. Another name that I found myself re-reading a few times was Dr. Joe Hovaugh. Every time I came across this name, I stuttered over the words until I read it aloud. The name is a play on word of Jehovah, which also reflects the character in which his opinions and judgements are of a Christian viewpoint. The last name I wanted to discuss, even though there are a few others that need to be spoken aloud to catch the allusion, is George Morningstar. I found a list of the characters’ names at the end of the book, but before I read the meanings attributed to the names, I thought of Satan/Lucifer as being referred to as Morning star. I actually repeated the name a few times out loud because I couldn’t remember where I heard it before, but then it clicked. I’m not sure if the name morningstar has any correlation with the devil, but it seems fitting since the character of George, a white American man, was mentally and physically abusive to Latisha when they were together. He put on a facade of being caring and empathetic towards her, signalling to Satan alluring Eve in the garden of Eden, but once he and Latisha married, his true colours shone through.

Throughout the novel, there were countless times when simply reading the words on the page was not enough to fully grasp the subtleties of King’s brilliant writing. As we have learnt from the lessons and assigned readings, silent reading can be very surface level in terms of fully understanding the text, and this notion was further emphasized in our own participation in creating and orally telling our own creation story. Reading aloud is a very different form of interpreting a story, and you not only pick up on specific allusions, but you better grasp the weight and meaning that words have when brought to life through speech and sound. I don’t know what I expected before picking up Green Grass, Running Water, but after reading the first chapter, I was enticed and captivated by King’s creative writing and his ability to convey and tell a story, within a story, within a story. I think one of his intentions in doing this was to make the reader work in terms of understanding exactly what he was writing about, which then lends itself to reading parts of the text aloud. He somehow brought the act of oral storytelling into a novel, and his story demonstrates the importance of orality and the spoken word, even on your own. The tradition of storytelling is quite prevalent in society, even though a majority of people don’t perceive it as such.

Works Cited

David, Daniel. “Thomas King, still not the Indian you had in mind.” The Globe And Mail, July 12th 2012,  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/thomas-king-still-not-the-indian-you-had-in-mind/article4426067/.

History.com Editors. “The Devil.” History, September 13th 2017, https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-the-devil.