1.) In his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” King discusses Robinson’s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, “the patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.” More than this, Robinson, he says “develops what we might want to call an oral syntax that defeats reader’s efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud” and in so doing, “recreating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to the story.
The first thing I noticed through my initial read of “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England” was that, among the grammatical errors, there are a few spelling errors. The grammatical errors were easy to fall into the rhythm of because it was not so much an error as it was a newfound set of rules that fit with oral storytelling. However, I found it jarring when finding a misspelling. Maybe it was from growing up in Western school systems that value spellcheck and proof reading above all things.
“So finally they give up.
They don’t seem him no more.
When they see him, they always chase him.
But when they can’t see him, what they gonna do?
No more.” (Robinson, 66).
It looks here that the word should be ‘see’ instead of ‘seem’. This happened a few times throughout the story and I found it distracting. Is this something others noticed?
I then read the story aloud to myself and to others. Something I immediately noticed once reading it aloud was the repetition. I found rather than adding clarity, the repetition confused me and most of the time had my listeners beginning to become bored of the story.
“‘We’ll never fight.
Once you say that, we’ll never fight.’
And that’s the second time it was told by God,
when they jump over the slough.
Was told not to fight.
First,
And this is second time.
And he said,
‘No, we not going to fight.'” (Robinson, 72-73).
I wondered about how the repetition could be used differently while reading aloud and tried having different people reading the story as well as changing my own rhythms while reading. Something that occurred to me is that as much as I look for different ways of reading this story aloud, I will never be able to know how Robinson told the story. I get a certain feel for the way he told the story by having it written down, however, I will never quite know what it was like to hear him speak it aloud.
“And that’s for a long time.
They try to find.
They don’t find him no more.” (Robinson, 66).
If you’ve read any of my previous blog posts you’ll know that I love making connections to theatre. This had me thinking about the way I read scripts. When given a script and a part for a play, I look for the objectives and actions of my character and speak from there. However, during a film class, we were given scripts that all came from actual movies and tv shows. Reading a script from a movie I knew well, I could remember the way the actors in the film spoke these lines. Maybe it had to do with the writing, which in my opinion is horrendous, or maybe it was just getting something stuck in my head like a song. I struggled to get out of the speech pattern that I had heard from these actors. Having Robinson’s written story without a recording of him speaking was like being given a script for a play. I had nothing to reference and therefore found my own speech patterns and rhythms to tell this story.
Did others attempt reading this story aloud? Did you experience this same thing? And if not, what kind of experience did you have?
Works Cited
Bolibarra. “Friends.” YouTube. YouTube, 04 Feb. 2013. Web. 28 June 2016.
“Illustrated Twitter Typos.” Illustrated Twitter Typos. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 June 2016.
Kattan, Omar. “What Makes For An Exceptional Brand Storyteller?” Brand Stories New
Age Brand Building. N.p., 27 July 2013. Web. 29 June 2016.
Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled
and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books2005.
Hi Stefanie,
Before I even got to the end of your post, I was reminded of all of the times I’ve read Shakespeare for a class and had such trouble placing what was supposed to be happening in a scene on a first read. Even the cadence of a sentence is hard to grasp, especially when you know it is meant to be an oral piece. When you read a book, you’re given so much more liberty with what voice you choose to read it in.
I also tried to give this one a go reading out loud as I realized I wasn’t doing it justice by just going through it as I would a book.. And I ended up feeling a bit silly because of all of the repetition. But although I felt silly, I had a much better understanding of it.
Thanks for sharing your observations!
Hi Ashley,
I’m glad you tried reading the story aloud. I agree that reading it silently does not quite give Robinson justice. I find the same thing is helpful for plays, reading them aloud gives a different kind of meaning, or even more meaning, than reading silently. Thanks for your thoughts!
~Stef~