The Singing Fish

In our third fiction packet, we received a few excerpts from The Singing Fish by Peter Markus. In each of these excerpts, there is a different, surreal narrative. Each narrative describes a different situation, but always involves "us brothers," a term the narrator uses more than the term "I".  These narratives all have a "creation myth" feel to them; that is to say, they are all reminiscent of Native American creation myths. The type of language, simple and straightforward, along with the different stories, such as the story about creating "Girl", all point to this.

In my opinion, the second to last excerpt, also entitled The Singing Fish, describes the evolution of man and language. The narrative describes "made out of mud walls with these things - words - written on them." The narrator goes on to say "We close our eyes and let our hands do this seeing. This is what they see. They see mud and fish and river. ..... they become bones. No, they are fingers. No, no, they then become: tongues. No, look again: they become fish." To me, this signifies the creation of language. It is a description of how man came to communicate certain things to one another. To me, this is a description of how drawings on mud-caked walls first became words.