Customer Reviews

Green Grass, Running Water

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

... I'd make them all read this book. I discovered it in my Native American Fiction class during my senior year at Yale, and in my four years as a literature major, I'd never read anything better. Thomas King is a genius. He is also, according to my professor, a man-- a fact that my entirely female class refused to believe after reading the brilliantly satirical reworkings of phallocentric myths and legends that he intersperses throughout the book. His characters are hilariously and achingly real; his prose transcends the written word in its effortless use of oral storytelling methods. If you're still reading my stumbling attempts to convey the brilliance of this book, please stop immediately and buy it. Buy a few copies, because you'll want to share this with your friends, and they won't want to give it back.

Halfway through "Green Grass.." , I stopped and read it from the start again. I've read everyone from Alexie to Welch and this is simply and undoubtedly the very best novel (or fiction) I've read about native americans yet. Actually, I think it's the best novel I've read in a decade at least. with Terrific characters and dialogue, a wicked sense of humor and a poignant sense of the human condition, this book is both mischievous and brilliant, capturing the trickster spirit, and the humor of modern day native american people. I can't wait for King's next book...And where is it, anyway?

This book is a brilliant, if slightly confusing, satire on the way white-christian-capitalist culture in North America has mistreated the aboriginal people. Blending reality and legend, this story pokes fun at the Canadian and American governments, Hollywood, and Christianity, through the lives of several Blackfoot people, both on and off the reserve, and the meddling of four ancient Indians and the trickster-god Coyote. This is a story that makes you think, while tears of laughter are rolling down your cheeks.

This is a great romp. King has an almost Wodehousian sense of comic coincidence, but with a subtler and rarer touch. Although it is a hilarious book, the discovery of yet another connection between the novel's converging story lines is just as likely to elicit an 'ah ha' as a belly laugh. It's funny, but humor is applied with some depth.

King pokes fun at his characters and their foibles, but he always does it with a certain sense of reverance. "Tomorrow, he would begin to floss." he says of one character when at the age of 40 he decides to finally do something meaningful with his life. It takes courage in a post modern, politically correct world, but maybe laughing with someone about their own cultural baggage is a sincere and accessible form of respect.

I have to point out that from a Christian perspective, parts of the book could be viewed as sacrilegious. Although they are the heroes of the book, perhaps some aboriginal Americans would also consider his reworking of mythological stories as being inappropriate--I cannot say. I choose instead to interpret this in cultural instead of religious terms. One of the major themes of the book is the oppressiveness of western cultural imperialism and its affect on the remaining indigenous population. Its hard to do that without taking a poke or two at the religion that has so frequently been used as an excuse for non-religious cultural and economic activities.

King is insightful and droll--no gender, race, or occupation is completely safe from his biting wit and sense of the absurd. A review on the book cover describes his similarity to Twain, and I think the comparison is apt. Like Twain, the dialogue is snappy, colloquial and believable. The story is funny, engrossing and challenging. I think Twain would have liked it and recommended it. I do too.

This novel is set over a period of just a few days mainly in the town of Blossom, Alberta when magical characters including a coyote come to life to work a miracle among a contemporary group of native people & their all-too realistic lives.

So many characters & stories in this book that I found it improved immensely on the second reading. Creation myths, native history, Hollywood westerns, corporate aggression, the stress of modern relationships and contemporary reservation life in Canada are all intertwined, this book is fine storytelling.

This is an inventive, magical book for anyone who knows, or wishes to know, American Indian ways of seeing the world. Rather than ponderously attempting to explain the Indian mind, King simply puts it on display: storytelling, puckish humor, memory, quiet persistence and all. Through that Indian lens, the book examines the interactions of men and women, white and Indian attitudes, modern and traditional ways, Hollywood and real history.

It is understandable that those not familiar with Indians might find the book disjointed or hard to follow or less laugh-out-loud hilarious than it is. Much of my enjoyment came from seeing all my Mohican aunts, uncles and cousins -- and the Blackfeet who is married to one of them -- reflected in King's Blackfeet characters.

Nonetheless, for those who know -- or take the time to understand -- Indian ways of thinking, this is a simply wonderful book, a more polished companion to the delightful movie "Smoke Signals" and the Sherman Alexie short stories in "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" from which that film is drawn.

In this book, king clearly illustrates the great differences between the native american people and the "new" inhabitants of America. By interweaving biblical allusions into his text, the reader is required also to think at what appears in front of him on the page. The book is written in a very witty way, and hence might appear a bit childish at first glance. Once the reader is able to look beyond this cover, a new challenging dimension of the book unfolds. This short review is an invitation as well as a recomemdation to purchase and bey this book!

This book is a very fun read. The various characters, especially coyote and the four elders, are wonderful, as are the four framing creation stories. King can deal with very serious matters and still be hilarious, and his use of joke names for some of his characters is wittily done (i.e. there is a Joseph Hovaugh -- je hova). My only problem with the work lies in a feeling of being left out -- I was somehow given the sense that I would understand the book more if I were Native, even though I am passably well versed in the mythologies the story deals with. Some of the understandings gained by the characters seem culturally specific, in a way, a feeling which I did not get from King's "Medicine River."

King did a great job at writing this book; not only is it amusing, but its also very insightful as to how natives have to blend into the modern day culture while trying to maintain their heritage at the same time.

The way its written is also great: each character has their own story with no apparent connection in the beginning; all of them slowly intertwining with each other towards the middle, and joining towards the end.

Overall a very entertaining novel! :)

This book is intelligent, satirical, and very thoughtfully written. It weaves the stories of multiple characters from a Blackfoot Indian reserve, but if you look deeper it offers comments on life as a Native American in Canada and the US while playfully comparing native religion to Christianity. Almost every character in the book (even the most minor ones) are named after literary and historical figures, giving the reader plenty to think about. King is a very talented writer, and this book offers a lot to people who are willing to commit to his style of writing. King is a Native American storyteller, so he's not going to give you a "Once upon a time..." straight forward novel with the formula you were taught in grade school (i.e. rising action, climax, falling action, resolution). I'm guessing the bad reviews are coming from people that have never read outside the cannon! I would recommend reading "The Truth About Stories," another King novel, before this one.