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[Book] The Truth about Stories: A Native

Posted : 16 years, 3 months ago on 30 December 2007 02:36

I love this book.

My previous experience with Thomas's King was his popular novel Green Grass, Running Water, which I enjoyed tremendously. This non-fiction, like most of King's works, is also concerned with the issues of Native culture and First Nation people. The Truth about Stories consists of "lectures" on the nature of storytelling in relation to Native and Western culture, but the lectures are stories themselves, consisting of anecdotes from King's personal experiences and the collective experiences of the Native people. King's narrative bears his trademark humour and fragmented style of storytelling. His intentional 'digressions' within the narrative is a conscious effort on his part to imitate the style of Native oral storytelling. He raises some interesting questions about the differences between Native creation stories and the Western/Christian creation story, such as the dichotomy of the Christian narrative in contrast to the more fluid and flexible oral storytelling tradition of the Natives.

King touches on politics, culture, religion, history, literature and popular culture in both the Native and North American contexts and asks profound questions in the disguise of humour and the casual writing style. This book was an education for me. It made me laugh at the same time it made me cry. It opened my eyes to the possibility of looking at stories from a different perspective and made me consider "the truth" about and of stories. It is a book that can change, if not your life, at least your perspective on the world.


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