Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories, is now my favorite work of the semester, passing up Qwo-Li’s poetry. I really enjoyed King’s message of how important stories really are, which reiterated the point that now it’s my turn to spread stories myself. King passes on many relevant stories throughout this book, and I felt an absolute sense of pride and desire to spread the word even more. “One of the surprising things about Indians is that we’re still here.” Yes. Native Americans have overcome so much adversity, and unnecessary problems, yet have persevered. In return, I feel that I have a responsibility to help broaden horizons, by spreading the many Native American traditions and stories to help the culture flourish.
His writing style is very interesting and effective. Each story starts with a similar beginning of the previous topic, but emphasizes a different situation, which accounts for a different story ranging from basketball games, duck and coyotes, and the disappearing of Indians. He is masterful in his belief of being able to think about a story differently, or even better tell it differently. King is a great storyteller, who uses humor and emotion to get across his views on Native American culture and history, oral traditions, and personal experiences. This book demonstrates how stories shape the perceptions of our world, and further understand the world around us. However, he warns us, “You have to be careful with the stories you tell. And you have to watch out for the stories that you are told.”
The story of coyotes and ducks is a great metaphor of the history of whites never being satisfied, and Indians suffering because of it. This story retells the notion that Natives are looked down upon as not important. Sure, its human nature to always want more, but that doesn’t make it alright to take from the vulnerable. The ducks were content with their lives, and didn’t deserve to be bothered by the sly coyote. “But then who will sing for them?” Who will dance for them? Who will remind them of their relationship with the earth?” If only it was this easy to see that both cultures could exist together and attain a solid relationship, if only greed didn’t take over. However, the coyote moves on, thinking about his next move, while the ducks have to start over again from scratch, and “pick up the pieces.”
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