This Is How It Always Is: Part III: Oral Tradition Summary & Analysis

One day, the woman at the school tells Claude to teach the children to speak English. Claude doesn’t know how to do that, but the woman says that since Claude speaks English, it shouldn’t be hard. “You learn from listen, talk, read,” the woman says. “They same.” Claude stands staring at the children, and one boy demands that Claude tell them a story. Claude knows one story, he says, but it is very long. At a loss for what to do, Claude tells the students the stories of Grumwald. From then on, Claude and the students trade stories—he tells them about Grumwald, and they tell him Thai and Burmese fairytales.

Penn always calls in the morning, and the next day, Claude tells him about the school and the stories. There is even Cinderella in Thailand, Claude says, only the story is different. “Of course,” Penn says. “That’s how fairytales work.” They are “retold and reimagined,” that is the “oral tradition,” and it is what gives stories their magic. Stories are endless, Penn says, and they change over time. “Like me,” Claude says. Yes, Penn confirms. Things change, he continues, but not the love Penn and Rosie have for Claude. Penn apologizes for keeping Claude a secret. Someone so wonderful should never be kept a secret, he says.

Penn has been thinking about fairytales a lot lately, too, he says. He likes fairytales because the magic is quick and painless. Cinderella is turned into a princess with the wave of a wand, which makes for an amazing story, but it doesn’t work that way in real life. Even if Penn could wave a magic wand over Claude and make him Poppy, he doesn’t want to, because he doesn’t want to erase Claude’s early life—his story. The next day, Claude knows that Penn is right. He hasn’t been telling stories all these years, he has been “perfecting his world.” If you write your own story, Claude know knows, then you can control the ending, and you can be anyone you want to be.