I read this for my current MFA work, so my review is more from a writer's craft perspective. Below is a cut and past from a response paper. The Japanese Kanji that I put in to illustrate some things will be (is) lost.Despite the author’s protestations to the contrary, this is classic—nearly archetypical—quality science fiction. I have been reading science fiction and fantasy for approximately 42 years, at one time probably consuming thirty to forty books per year (albeit not all were quality!). The plot, the technique of revealing slowly rather than giving background, the devolution of man, are all subjects that have been treated—at a surface level—in similar manners. The idea of speaking only in metaphors as a language has been explored in science fiction as has the rediscovery of gunpowder post apocalypse. What makes Riddley Walker unique and worthwhile is the language. More precisely, the depth of the language as a part of the story itself. Even here I must resist the temptation to dive into the analysis as to whether the language creation approaches believability or not. I had discussions with a close friend whose PhD is in linguistics on this. The short answer is “who really knows and to keep it readable one has to go in some directions.” Reading Beowulf in its original form—or attempting to— shows how much language can change in hundreds of years—let alone the over two thousand that is mentioned in Riddley Walker (125). Regardless as to whether it is accurate or not, it can be accepted and is largely believable.To what purpose is the massive effort by Hoban directed? He states that Riddleyspeak is crafted partially because it “slows the reader down to Riddley’s rate of comprehension.” Yes, there is no doubt that by creating Riddleyspeak—Hoban’s term—we are forced to slow down. I would argue that Riddley’s rate of comprehension for many things is extremely fast for a twelve year old, but that is a side comment. When two out of three words are Riddelyspeak we are forced to slow down. When we slow down, we start to ponder a number of things: what are the new meanings of the words—in particular the double meanings, why has the language evolved this way, and most intriguingly what subplot and subtext is implied by the language itself. The latter is what truly distinguishes Riddley Walker from most other writing I have encountered. The evolution of the language is its own story and subtext. The language itself is a metaphor for the change that the society has gone through. The reader knows that he is missing something and it is left to the reader to decide how much to puzzle. The danger is that one can read too much into the words and meaning. For example this sentence that Goodparley utters, “This here yellerboy stoan the Salt 4 it want to be whats in it to be. (143)”The paragraph and page preceding it is discussing how boys want to become men and Goodparley killed his own mentor, because his mentor was making him boy for him. It is clear that this has a double meaning of being raped, or at least having sex—a bit the way Greeks and Romans did in ancient times—but Hoban gives multiple meanings to the word “man” and “boy.” “Goodparley said, ‘Everything wants to man dont it. Wants to go from littl to big. Wants to be what in it to be.’(142-3)” So when we read “yellerboy” we ponder the meaning of “boy” here. We are told by the language and Goodparely’s description that the “yellerboy stoan” has some hidden power within it that wants to come out. Then we ponder why the word “Salt” is capitalized. Given what we have read earlier this could be simply because it is important-“Plomercy” is capitalized (meaning diplomacy). Or it could have historic meaning from an old name, such as “Parments” meaning Parliament. So then the reader, knowing already that this is post apocalyptic, might be tempted to think, hmm, Salt 4 might be a double meaning, referencing a SALT 4 treaty, because Goodparley thinks it is key to a big bang. But as we start to figure out this is sulfur and then saltpeter (sodium nitrate) is added to it to make gunpowder…and sodium nitrate is a salt. Then one can start to think well the 4 might be simply the way all other numbers are written, or it might be, right next to Salt, if it is saltpeter, the ratio of saltpeter to sulfur. Very roughly, black powder is 4 to 5 parts saltpeter to 1 part charcoal and 1 part sulfer. Or, in the end we simply decide that Salt 4 is indeed the word Sulfur and yellow stoan is a bit redundant. This very simple sentence thus has multiple meanings and layers and there are dozens of these per page. So, the reader has to read slow to say the words out loud and to ponder their meanings and the meanings apply directly to the plot itself. Although it is never stated, we quickly come to the conclusion that the language evolved due to a lack of writing—we understand that there was a new dark age and this is the age after that dark age. The language we are reading only makes sense if we read it aloud—at least read it aloud in our heads—almost syllable by syllable. This is different than normal reading where you see the entire word at once and absorb the word without reading it letter by letter, syllable by syllable. Additionally, one has to intentionally slur the words and often string them together to get the meaning. We assume this is because of hundreds of years of listening only. The easy examples of the language evolution:Killed becomes “kilt” (the “t” becomes the new “ed” … which is what you hear when you say many words ending in “ed” quickly.)Send becomes “sen,” under becomes “unner,” west becomes “wes,” and so on. I hardly need reference individual words that are used throughout the book. These ring true, or possible, as they are already the way words are slurred orally by (all too) many. With literacy disappearing this seems reasonable as a way for language to degenerate, or evolve. That this then becomes the way it is written by some demonstrates that it has become fully incorporated into the language and that society is only partially literate. This also rings true when comparing to the writings of many in England and the U.S. from even the 1800s. Standard, “correct,” spellings of words is a relatively recent phenomena. Riddlespeak is an oral language that is only weakly reinforced by writing. It hints at all sorts of things that makes us want to explore the language as much as the main story. Why, for instance, the breaking up of words. Simple compounds are broken into separate words and even what we don’t consider a compound now is broken into two words: “Littl Shyning Man wer a nother thing and tirely.(149)” and + tirely = entirely is just one of countless per chapter. I recalled the little Japanese and Chinese characters I know and it struck me that in some ways this is similar to the composition of words from sub characters to form a new word. This made it ring true to my mind. Words, or sub words might be used in combination to mean different things similar to the kanji of Japanese. For example in Japanese “hi” (pronounced he) is the symbol it means sun, or day, or fire, depending on the context. The word book is moto . The word for fireplace is hinomoto and in kanji is . Hoban is using a bit of a similar technique. “And” has nothing to do with entirely, but because of the sound is used in a split compound word. I found this interesting and knowing that Japanese and Chinese does something sort of similar made this more believable. I have no idea of Hoban was thinking of this when doing this, but he had a firm enough understanding of language and going back and forth with phonetics to written that he may have come up with it independently.The beauty of all good fiction is that, like all art, each reader will interpret the work in their own way. Some will see metaphors where the author never consciously intended. The genius of Hoban’s invention of Riddleyspeak is that not only does it slow down the reader as he overtly states as his intention, but it almost forces the reader into thinking about double, triple, or more meanings of the words. Then, by layering on an obvious oral tradition in the culture, where the main character’s role—and his father’s before him—is to interpret a traveling “show” for the listeners makes us as readers consider the entire book as a show, with shows within it, and those shows reference past oral histories. Thus, some metaphors become metaphors within the language that has been invented, which are in turn metaphors for the story itself. Staying with the same page as before (149) we can see this layered metaphor. Riddley is thinking of a stanza—for want of a better word—from Eusa: “7. Thay dogs stud up on thear hyn legs & taukin lyk men. Folleree sed, Lukin for the 1 you wil aul ways fyn thay 2. Folleroo sed, They 2 is twice as bad as the 1.” Riddley tells us explicitly that he is using it as a metaphor for what is happening with him. But, the metaphor itself is a story we are not familiar with in detail, we haven’t lived it as he seems to have through his oral tradition (see my later comments on the Star Trek episode). At the same time this metaphor starts to become the common thread of “bringing things together can be bad” and we are reminded of the sulfur and saltpeter…and that is then applied to bringing the sulfur to Belnot Phist cause his demise. This oral tradition that comes up over and over—the word “Lissener” (149) has multiple meanings too--is similar to Native American storytelling, or African storytelling is a layer of complexity and metaphor that is omnipresent in the book. It reminds me of a Star Trek Next Generation episode (number 102) where the race encountered speaks entirely in metaphor. The universal translator is rendered useless because the words meanings are only in the metaphor, not in the literal translation. “..the Tamarian language is entirely based on metaphors from Tamarian folklore. They learn that Darmok was a hunter and Tanagra is an island, but nothing else. Without knowing the stories behind the metaphors, the Tamarian language remains indecipherable. (Wikipedia)” One wonders if either of the authors were exposed to Hoban. One, Philip LaZebnik has a Classics degree from Harvard.Regardless, the analogy is that until one starts to understand the stories behind the oral histories we read in Riddley—or rather “hear” from Riddley’s ears—we do not decipher the full richness of the book. This will be a book I need to return to in six months to see what I catch then.My issue in citing particular passages is that I can flip open the book to any page and start to explore the metaphors and language. Thus, the ones I will explore will be simply ones that struck me while reading enough to slap a sticky note into the book—I hate writing directly in a book, it destroys the reread later on.One thing that struck me were the—at first blush—apparent anachronisms. For example, “hes getting his serkits jus that little bit over loadit (51).” Circuit in this usage has only an electronics meaning. Yet we know that this civilization has no real concept of anything so sophisticated. Through this and other phrases, or words, such as “program,” or “gallack seas” (for galaxies) we understand how much the past glory of the human race means to these people. They have tried to preserve through words and oral histories old phrases and meanings, without understanding their full meanings. What is so interesting is that we figure this out, it is never told to us. The use of the language tells this story.Indeed, Riddley spends a considerable amount of time thinking about metaphors himself. What do the oral histories mean, is fundamentally what he is constantly asking himself, or explicitly asking Goodparley. He (Riddley) gives us the entire Eusa Story (30-36). Each stanza is a metaphor used throughout the story. Stanza 7, which is partially repeated on 149, ends with “Eusa sed, I woan be tol by amminals.(31)” The dogs are telling him something. The dogs are then repeated in Riddley’s world and they are a metaphor for people not listening and having to learn from experience, versus being told, because they don’t trust the people who are below them.The Eusa Story is a metaphor, or perhaps closer to an allegory to Riddley’s story, which in turn is an metaphor for human history, including the atomic bomb. Stanza 32 ends with “Yu let thay Chaynjis owt & now yuv go to go on thru them. (36)” We see the changes of Riddley himself and of course the change of gunpowder being re-introduced to the world. Stanza 37 has two interesting lines: “How mene Chaynjis are thayr?” and “As menne as reqwyrd. Eusa sed, Reqwyrd by wut? The littl Man sed, Reqwyrd by the idear uv yu. Eusa sed, Wut is the idear uv me? The Littl Man sed, That we doan no til yuv gon thru and yur Chaynjis. (36)” This stanza is itself a metaphor for Riddley’s story, of change and knowing yourself, and of history repeating itself with big changes and doomed to do so until it figures it out, which is the bigger plot of the story and finally note that the capitalization of Chaynjis gives it emphasis and different layers of meaning. The writing technique here that is so interesting in the language combined with the trick of using an explicit oral history that the characters know to represent the story they are living.These analyses of the writing craft are supposed to be a few pages long. I see I have 25 more sticky notes I have not yet addressed. I would like to try and address the voice that Riddley has. The first person gives the intimate innermost thoughts common in first person, but beyond that his voice is that of a story teller. An oral tradition voice embedded in the character that highlights an oral tradition society. As with the language itself, there are countless examples of this. The following I chose because it illustrates this more explicitly than some other places:And stil I aint said all there is to say about that morning in the aulders. The bloody meat and boan of it. The worl is ful of things waiting to happen. That the meat and the boan of it right there. You myt think you can jus go her and there doing nothing. Happening nothing. You cant tho you bleeding cant. You put your self on any road and some thing wil show its self to you. Wanting to happen. Waiting to happen. (154)This shows the story teller in Riddley and the self-awareness and searching. He sees meanings in everything. That is his job and gift. The voice is unique, something I strive for, but often fail. In the interest of brevity, I will leave deeper analysis of the meanings behind “stoan” and “hart of the stoan” and “hart of the wud” and the way simple words like “tel” have layers of meaning for a PhD thesis. Suffice to say that in just over 200 pages Hoban weaves not just a tale, but a multilayered story of possible evolutions of language, societies, and cultures, where the reader can decide how deep to dig, but is never sure if the bottom has been reached.
There’s a point in Riddley Walker where Riddley writes, “You try to word the big things and they tern ther backs on you,” which is a bit how I feel trying to write about this book. There are so many “big things” going on in it that it’s difficult to decide what to raise in a short review. But I will try to articulate a few of the “big things” that struck me on this – my first – reading.Riddley Walker shares a theme with Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. In that novel, our world too is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust, and its survivors spend the subsequent two thousand years recovering only to commit the same follies and suffer the same fate. Riddley Walker isn’t written on the same time scale – it takes place over the course of about a week – but the idea of humanity’s recurring folly is present. Abel Goodparley and Erny Orfing, respectively the Pry Mincer and Wes Mincer of Inland, seek to recreate the “1 Big 1” (the atom bomb) and the “1 Littl 1” (gunpowder) so they can rebuild the world from “time back way back.”Riddley Walker is also kin to Edgar Pangborn’s Davy and Still I Persist in Wondering. Again in the humanity-can-be-kind-of-stupid theme but also in similarities between the characters of Davy and Riddley. Both ultimately reject what their societies impose upon them. Davy’s rejection is more of an individual choice and he doesn’t set out to change anyone’s life but his own. Riddley, though, is a “happener” (in Goodparley’s estimation) and what he chooses to do will have profound consequences (you suspect; the ending leaves us at the beginning of his “roading”). And there’s an underlying humane-ness that Hoban shares with Pangborn. A sense that – despite our flaws, there is something good in us – that I don’t find so much in Miller. Chapter 15, which is the central part of the story, recounts Riddley’s flight from Goodparley, his attempt to reach a former companion (Lissener) whom he realizes is in trouble, and the epiphany he reaches in the ruins of Canterbury Cathedral (Cambry). In the course of that flight he moves from being Lissener’s ally in overthrowing the Mincers, to agreeing with Goodparley’s plans for Inland, to realizing that neither party is right and he must chart a third course: May be all there ever ben wer jus only 1 minim when any thing ever cud be right and that minim all ways gone befor you seen it. May be soons that 1st stoan tree stood up the wrongness hung there in the branches of it the wrongness ben the 1st frute of the tree…I wer progammit diffrent then from how I ben when I come in to Cambry. Coming in to Cambry my head ben full of words and rimes and all kynds of jumbl of yellerboy stoan thots. Back then I ben thinking of the Power of the 2 and the 1 and the Hy Power what ben wooshing roun the Power Ring time back way back. The 1 Big 1 and the Spirit of God. My mynd ben all binsy with myndy thinking. Thinking who wer going to do what and how I myt put some thing to gether befor some 1 else done it. Seed of the red and seed of the yeller and that. That onwith of the yeller boy and the pig shit in the hart of the wood. Hart of the wud. Now I dint want nothing of that. I dint know what the connexion were with that face in my mynd only I knowit that face wer making me think diffrent. I wernt looking for no Hy Power no mor I dint want no Power at all. I dint want to do nothing with that yellerboy stoan no mor. Greanvine were the name I put to that face in my mynd.I cud feal some thing growing in me it wer like a grean sea surging in me it wer saying, LOSE IT. Saying, LET GO. Saying, THE ONLYES POWER IS NO POWER.Which brings me to the “Eusa shows.” These are puppet shows – propaganda – put on by the Pry Mincer and the Wes Mincer to justify their rule. They are the wildly distorted remembrances of the story of St. Eustace, the scientists who created the 1 Big 1 and the governments who used it, and Punch and Judy. They form the ritualized beliefs that unite the farmers (the “forms”) and the hunter-gatherers (the “fents”) of Inland. When Goodparley takes Riddley into his confidence at one point, he tells him about and reenacts the original Punch and Judy show, and later Riddley stumbles upon an ancient Punch doll. And it’s in this medium of storytelling that Riddley begins to “happen” things. The book ends with Riddley and Orfing shaking things up with a “Punch and Pooty” play at Weaping form: Pooty says, ‘I know that wel a nuff thats why Im going down to get on with it now wil you mynd the babby?’Punch says, ‘Not a bit. Mmmmm. Yum yum yum.’Pooty says, ‘Whyd you say “Yum yum yum”?’Punch says, ‘I wer jus clearing my froat.’Pooty says, ‘For what?’Punch says, ‘So I can sing to the babby.’Pooty says, ‘What kynd of song you going to sing?’Punch says, ‘Yummy py.’Pooty says, ‘Whatd you say?’Punch says, ‘Lulling by. Iwl sing the babby lulling bys.’Pooty terns to the crowd she says, ‘Wud you please keap a eye on him wylst Im frying my swossages. Give us a shout wil you if he dont mynd that babby right.’Theres plenny of voices in the crowd then speaking up theyre saying, ‘Dont you worry Pooty wewl keap a eye on him.’ Easyers voice says, ‘Wewl see your babby right Pooty that littl crookit barset he bes not try nothing here.’Punch he dont anser nothing to that. When Pooty goes down hes zanting a littl with the babby its a littl jerky kynd of dants. Hes singing:‘There wer a littl babbyA piglet fat and juicyWho ever got ther hans on himThey cudnt tern him luceyAh yummy yummy yummyAh slubber slubber slooAh tummy tummy tummyAh piggy piggy poo’The crowd becomes so incensed by Punch’s imminent cannibalism that one jumps up and attacks Riddley to stop it. There’s a parallel here between this and a story Riddley tells early in the book about the Bad Times when a couple are convinced by a “clevver” man to kill and eat their own child. Punch, the “clevver” one, can never be trusted with the “babby,” the “Power” (?): The clevver looking bloak said, 'Iwl tel you what Iwl do Iwl share you my fire and my cook pot if youwl share me what to put in the pot.' He wer looking at the chyld.The man and the woman thot: 2 out of 3 a live is bettern 3 dead. They said, 'Done.'They kilt the chyld and drunk its blood and cut up the meat for cooking.The clevver looking bloak said, 'Iwl show you how to make fire plus Iwl give you flint and steal and makings nor you dont have to share me nothing of the meat only the hart.'Which he made the fire then and give them flint and steal and makings then he cookt the hart of the chyld and et it.The clevver looking bloak said, 'Clevverness is gone now but littl by littl itwl come back. The iron wil come back agen 1 day and when the iron comes back they wil bern chard coal in the hart of the wood. And when they bern the chard coal ther stack wil be the shape of the hart of the chyld.' Off he gone then singing:Seed of the littlSeed of the wyldSeed of the berning isHart of the chyld'And this just scratches the surface. I originally gave Riddley Walker three stars (albeit, a strong three stars) but upon rereading passages, looking at other GR reviews, and following the threads of a serendipitously found discussion of the book at the A.V. Club, I’m revising my appraisal to four stars and even more strongly recommend this book.Oh, yeah – the language. As you may have gathered from the quotes above, Riddley Walker is written in the vernacular of Inland but this isn’t a gimmick. If you’re able to get through the first chapter or two, the rules of Riddley’s English become clear and it’s only occasionally difficult to understand what’s going on (e.g., it took a random reference in the A.V. Club thread to “Salt 4” meaning “sulfur” before I figured that one out). Using it, however, Hoban makes readers inhabit Riddley’s world like no other device can and demands that they pay attention to what’s (and what’s not) being said.
What do You think about Riddley Walker (1998)?
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!I imagine most people would like to be thought of as open-minded, willing to branch out and try something different. I know that my own self-image is that of someone with catholic taste in reading, not so easily pinned down. Sometimes you have to walk the walk so, based on some excellent book group recommendations, I ended up reading three books in the last month that were distinctly out of my "comfort zone". Though the three are quite different, they share a common feature, the exploration of human behavior under extreme circumstances. The first two were Jose Saramago's "Blindness" (response to a mysterious, frightening epidemic of blindness) and Maria Doria Russell's "The Sparrow" (the fate of an exploratory mission to a newly discovered planet in the Alpha Centauri system. I would recommend both books unreservedly, "The Sparrow" in particular.The last book of the three was Russell Hoban's "Riddley Walker", a dystopic vision set in a future, post-apocalyptic England. In the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, society has reverted to a level of Iron-Age sophistication; wild dogs roam the countryside. Most problematically for the reader, Hoban's view involves language and communication reverting to an imagined pre-civilized patois, and the entire book is written as a first-person narrative by the main protagonist, Riddley Walker, in this invented "proto-language". Think of the Russian-based slang of 'A Clockwork Orange" and multiply the degree of unintelligibility tenfold. Here is an example:"The Ardship he begun to gether with the Eusa folk they all took off ther cloes and tangelt ther selfs to gether all nekkit and twining like a nes of snakes which they callit that some poasyum. Which they done trantsing with it and hy telling. Doing it in that old Power Station in Fork Stoan where the out poast is. Which that place its so big and eckowing it wer realy some thing to hear them telling of the many cools of Addom and the party cools of stoan and all the diffrent colourt seeds and that. It put you hy your oan self even tho you mytnt know nothing of it yet you cud get jus the fayntes glimmer of what it musve ben to be the Puter Leat. To have them boats in the air which they callit them space craf and them picters on the wind which that wer viddyo and going out beyont the sarvering gallack seas. Not just singing it you know." (review continues in the comments section)
—David
This is an already-famous book, and the internet is full of reviews and dedicated websites, so there really is little more I feel needs to be said. However, I think it is useful for any potential reader of this to get a sense of how easy it to read, how one grows rapidly used to the phonetics. Also, for me, much of the brilliance of this novel can be found in the construction of individual paragraphs, and in the genius of it on the micro level, rather than in any discussion of the Big Themes. The old cliche that is is hardest to make complex things simple is true, and RH does it with grace and a lightness of touch that is awe-inspiring. The hardest thing to do in creating a mythology is to give it weight, the density and heft that comes from centuries of use. It is certainly unsurprising to read that RH wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages before cutting everything down to the final text. This is also a book very much in the Wake of the Wake. And that is to be celebrated. Look at how subtle, complex and meaning-full this writing is, look how well crafted its rhythm is, how deceptively simply it states complex truths:"I dont have nothing only words to put down on paper. Its so hard. Some times theres mor in the emty paper nor there is when you get the writing down on it. You try to word the big things and they tern ther backs on you. Yet youwl see stanning stoans and ther backs wil talk to you. "*******"Every thing has a shape and so does the nite only you cant see the shape of nite nor you cant think it. If you put your self right you can know it. Not with knowing in your head but with the 1st knowing. Where the number creaper grows on the dead stoans and the groun is sour for 3 days digging the nite stil knows the shape of its self tho we dont. Some times the nite is the shape of a ear only it aint a ear we know the shape of. Lissening back for all the souns whatre gone from us. The hummering of the dead towns and the voyces befor the towns ben there. Befor the iron ben and fire ben only littl. Lissening for whats coming as wel. "*************"Raining agen it wer nex morning. Theres rains and rains. This 1 wer coming down in a way as took the hart and hoap out of you there wer a kynd of brilyants in the grey it wer too hard it wer too else it made you feal like all the tracks in the worl wer out paths nor not a 1 to bring you back. Wel of coarse they are but it dont all ways feal that way. It wer that kynd of morning when peopl wernt jus falling in to what they done naturel they had to work ther selfs in to it. Seamt like a lot of tea got spilt at breakfas nor the talk wernt the userel hummeling and mummeling there wer some thing else in it. Like when you see litening behynt the clouds. "*************“Every body knows Aunty. Stoan boans and iron tits and teef be twean her legs plus she has a iron willy for the ladys it gets red hot. When your time comes you have to do the juicy with her like it or not. She rides a girt big rat with red eyes it can see in the dark and it can smel whos ready for Aunty. Even if they dont know it ther selfs the rat can smel if theyre ready.” ********" Looking at the moon all col and wite and oansome. Lorna said to me, 'You know Riddley theres something in us it don't have no name.' I said, 'what thing is that?' She said, 'Its some kynd of thing it aint us yet its in us. Its looking out thru our eye hoals … Its all 1 girt thing bigger nor the worl and lorn and loan and oansome, Tremmering it is and feart. It puts us on like we put on our cloes. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the arm hoals and it tears us a part. I dont think I took all that much noatis of it when I ben yung. Now Im old I noatis it mor. It don't realy like to put me on no mor. Every morning I can feal how its tiret of me and readying to throw me a way. Iwl tel you some thing Riddley and keap this in memberment. Whatever it is we dont come naturel to it.' I said, 'Lorna I dont know what you mean.' She said, 'We aint a naturel part of it, We dint begin when it begun we dint begin where it begun. It ben here befor us nor I don't know what we are to it. May be weare jus only sickness and a feaver to it or boyls on the arse of it I don't know.'"
—Jonathan
Riddley Walker has clear precedents, such as the postmodern invented language of A Clockwork Orange and the post-apocalyptic search for lost knowledge that drives A Canticle for Leibowitz, but Hoban's novel remains a singularly original work. The language is the most striking thing about it, of course. A pidgin mishmash of broken, phonetically-spelled English and familiar words deconstructed and reconstructed, Riddley's language at first seems like an attention-grabbing gimmick, but it is anything but. It requires extra attention and thought on the part of the reader, but ultimately it leads to a much more immersive experience than if the book were written in standard English. There's a bit of Huck Finn in it, Pogo & His Pals, and Cockney brogue. It takes getting used to, but once you settle into it, it reveals its poetry.Looking at the moon all col and wite and oansome. Lorna said to me, 'You know Riddley theres something in us it don't have no name.'I said, 'what thing is that?'She said, 'Its some kynd of thing it aint us yet its in us. Its looking out thru our eye hoals ��� Its all 1 girt thing bigger nor the worl and lorn and loan and oansome, Tremmering it is and feart. It puts us on like we put on our cloes. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the arm hoals and it tears us a part. I dont think I took all that much noatis of it when I ben yung. Now Im old I noatis it mor. It don't realy like to put me on no mor. Every morning I can feal how its tiret of me and readying to throw me a way. Iwl tel you some thing Riddley and keap this in memberment. Whatever it is we dont come naturel to it.'[...]I said, 'Lorna I dont know what you mean.'She said, 'We aint a naturel part of it, We dint begin when it begun we dint begin where it begun. It ben here befor us nor I don't know what we are to it. May be weare jus only sickness and a feaver to it or boyls on the arse of it I don't know.'Riddley takes place at an unspecified time in the future, but apparently it is a couple of thousand years after the "Bad Time" which ensued following a major cataclysm, which is intimated to have been a nuclear disaster. The setting is Kent, England (or "Inland," as it's called"), among groups of iron age people that are shedding their nomadic ways and settling down into fenced communities. Storytelling and religion are a big part of their culture, and both of these aspects are fulfilled by traveling "Eusa men" who stage "Eusa shows," puppet shows telling and retelling the ever-evolving story of Eusa, the man who was responsible for bringing on the "Bad Time." Riddley's father is the "connexion man," the one who makes "connexions," or reveals the hidden meanings behind the Eusa show stories. When his father dies, Riddley, who just turned 12 and is now considered a man, takes over for his father as connexion man. Then the chance finding of an ancient relic sends Riddley on the run, setting him on a course that uncovers several threads, all leading back to the efforts of the powers that be to recover one of the lost powers of the ones that came before. That's a simplistic plot synopsis—one that does the book very little justice—but this is not a book to be synopsized; it is to be experienced on its own terms.After having read it once, I believe I can safely say that to read Riddley Walker is to re-read it. Often I found myself thinking, "I'm really going to get more out of this when I read it a second time." Its mythology and its mysteries are allusive and elusive, showing much but revealing little. (Psst. Some familiarity with the story of St. Eustace wouldn't hurt.) I was reminded a lot of A Canticle for Leibowitz, but where that book holds you at an ironic distance, Riddley just draws you down into the filth and the muck and the shit. It's as blackly funny in its own way as Miller Jr.'s venerable mytho-religious post-apocalyptic novel, but I just think Hoban did it better. It's wonderful, but I have no doubt its wonders will even better reveal themselves on the second go-round.
—Rod
