Russell Hoban

Riddley Walker

"A hero with Huck Finn's heart and charm, lighting by El Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy. . . . Riddley Walker is haunting and fiercely imagined and—this matters most—intensely ponderable." —Benjamin DeMott, The New York Times Book Review "This is what literature is meant to be." —Anthony Burgess "Russell Hoban has brought off an extraordinary feat of imagination and style. . . . The conviction and consistency are total. Funny, terrible, haunting and unsettling, this book is a masterpiece." —Anthony Thwaite, Observer "Extraordinary . . . Suffused with melancholy and wonder, beautifully written, Riddley Walker is a novel that people will be reading for a long, long time." —Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World "Stunning, delicious, designed to prevent the modern reader from becoming stupid." —John Leonard, The New York Times "Highly enjoyable . . . An intriguing plot . . . Ferociously inventive." —Walter Clemons, Newsweek "Astounding . . . Hoban's soaring flight of imagination is that golden rarity, a dazzlingly realized work of genius." —Jane Clapperton, Cosmopolitan "An imaginative intensity that is rare in contemporary fiction.' —Paul Gray, Time Riddley Walker is a brilliant, unique, completely realized work of fiction. One reads it again and again, discovering new wonders every time through. Set in a remote future in a post-nuclear holocaust England (Inland), Hoban has imagined a humanity regressed to an iron-age, semi-literate state—and invented a language to represent it. Riddley is at once the Huck Finn and the Stephen Dedalus of his culture—rebel, change agent, and artist. Read again or for the first time this masterpiece of 20th-century literature with new material by the author.

Riddley Walker, Expanded Edition

Joshua Line

Jacob Mishook

Read for book club. Much more carefully thought out and moving than other tales of post-apocalyptic futures.

Toyah Blackburn

It is who knows how far into the future. Far enough for today's world to have become an archaeological and anthropological fascination. The planet has been decimated by a disaster alluded heavily to as being a nuclear bomb (referred to as "Bad Time"). Civilisation has been cast back to an Iron Age way of life and the population spend their days digging up lost machinery to melt down, and the government is a secretive establishment intent on spreading the Story of Eusa.

Twelve year old Riddley Walker is the protagonist, and the story opens with him killing the last known wild boar on the eve of his becoming a man. Wise beyond his years in some ways, naive in others, Riddley is about to come of age.

 There's a pack of wild dogs who exist outside the fence of the compound posing a constant threat. The world in which the villagers live is desolate. Language has devolved into a phonetic version of the English that we know, and nobody but the Eusa Folk are allowed to write anything down. The result is a society which relies heavily on spoken word, oral tradition, mythology and folk tales. They've gone back to the old ways. The Eusa folk travel the country putting on The Eusa Show (comparable to traditional style Punch & Judy shows) which enable the government to control information distributed to the masses. 

Riddley makes a discovery which calls into question society as he knows it. He jumps the fence of the compound and follows a pack of wild dogs on a quest for the truth. Previously portrayed as almost mutant-like beasts, the dogs become Riddley's allies and guides as he discovers a world outside of his own. 

 All the way through the story, events are open to interpretation and confuse the reader until more is revealed to allow you to see what's really going on. Folk tales, mythology, religion, urban legend and real history all play their part in building the story and revealing the truth. There are many elements of the story which cast doubt right to the end as it continues to be told and passed down to the reader.

The theme of duality is prominent (instinct/intelligence, light/dark etc.), as is morality, and there are many references which could be construed as metaphors (I interpret the Littl Shynin Man to be not only referencing the nuclear bomb, but also the struggle between "1st knowing" (interpreted as instinct) and "clevverness" (learned intelligence).

Riddley's story carries many different elements, interpretations and morals that can be gleaned. It's an existentialist tale about what it means to be human, what's really important. And that's not all. It's a story you could read a hundred times and get something new from each time.

Riddley Walker

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