Green Grass, Running Water

This post originally published January 13, 2010.

Author: Thomas King
Published: 1993
Publisher: Harper Perennial
480 pages (paperback)
 
Synopsis: The story begins with Coyote and an unknown narrator in conversation. A dream of Coyote’s has taken a life of its own, running around and proclaiming itself GOD, but Coyote laughs and tells him he is not GOD, but a Dog. Dog wants to know why there is water everywhere, and the unknown narrator begins to explain by telling them both about four Indians (as they are called; they are Native Americans) who have escaped from a mental institution. The people at the hospital are searching for them; it is not the first time they have escaped. As the four Indians plan on how they will fix the world, their paths follow and intersect with a whole platoon of other Native American characters who are searching for their identity between their traditions and the modern world.

My Thoughts: Another novel I had to read, for my Canadian Literature course. It was really hard to write a synopsis for this story because, well, even by the end of the novel, I wasn’t really sure what the story was about. I think this novel is a comparison between Native American traditions, lifestyle and beliefs with Western ones, as evident by the creation story that unfolds — the narrator tells a story about what I assume to be famous Native American figures who take on the names of famous Western characters (The Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Hawkeye and Robinson Crusoe). These characters each encounter a bizarre and comical situation with a biblical/Christian character such as Jesus, or Noah, etc. It uses satire to compare the two beliefs.

This book is described as brilliant writing, has received rave reviews and has the honor of being one of the best Canadian novels of all time. I don’t doubt any of that at all, I can sort of see why one would regard this novel highly, but to be quite honest, I personally found this book terribly boring. I guess this is more of a book club discussion or college literature course type of book, not something I felt that can be read leisurely. The unique story structure and intertwining plots were confusing for me and I didn’t like any of the characters. There are a ton of characters in this novel and they all know one another in some way (sort of the same way the characters in the movies Love Actually or He’s Just Not That Into You do). All the characters had their own individual stories going on and I understood how they related to one another, but I didn’t understand the role of the four escaped Indians, and I didn’t understand the role of the unknown narrator or Coyote, and how the story of how the world was created fit in with all of this. I suspect there’s something symbolic or that there’s a deep meaning somewhere, but I only understood the surface of the story, to be honest — Native Americans were trying to maintain their traditions while living side by side with the modern world, and some Native Americans forsaking their traditions altogether and assimilating. I just didn’t understand the story and the parts I did understand, I didn’t find interesting. I always feel a bit ‘guilty’ when I say I don’t like books that other people regard as modern classics, or books that everyone but myself seem to love, so it kind of hurts to give it just one star (with a reminder that to me, one star just means I didn’t like it, not necessarily an awful book) though that’s just me — maybe you’ll find it more interesting than I did (apparently lots of people do, haha).

My Rating: 1/5