Rating: 
Summary: The best book I've ever read.
Review:
Russell Hoban, known for his clever and entertaining "Francis" series of children's books, proves his brilliance and depth as a writer in this adult novel.
Set in a frightenting future time when modern technological society (and its language) have virtually disappeared, Riddley Walker is an startling allegory about the rise and fall of humankind, our technology, religion, and values -- presented as the engaging story of a boy who becomes a man in a world we would hardly recognize.
If you appreciate ingenious use of language, metaphor, theology, and allegory, you will enjoy this book. It is truly my favorite of all time and a constant recommendation to friends
Rating: 
Summary: Unbearable.
Review: Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker (Summit, 1980)I have heard Riddley Walker praised as a classic in the making many times. I finally got my hands on a copy and gave it a try, and for all I know, those who call it such are correct. I couldn't tell. Hoban buys completely into the idea of creating a dialect that is only vaguely resembling English, and worse, he has his narrator use it for the whole novel. I'm sure there are those out there who became quickly fluent in it and could read this at the same speed they read any other novel, but I am incapable of such things. Every page took me at least ten minutes to get through. The end result is that the book is frustrating, incoherent, and ultimately unreadable. Not one to pick up if you don't like spending a long, long time poring over material; if you do, you'd be better off reading incomprehensible literary criticism. At least it passes for English. (zero)
Rating:
Summary: Shards of Hope Amongst the Rubble of Despair
Review: Look far, into the future far;
the Earth is covered with a nuclear scar;
most of culture and civilization has been lost in the breeze;
Man struggles, day to day, to not starve or freeze. Almost all knowledge is lost;
left is bits and scraps, covered with dust and frost;
Dark and dreary, sick and weary,
Man strives to piece together all that was lost. A few rhymes, an equation or two;
noble ideas almost empty of meaning;
What was fiction, and was true?
Man yearns to know, but toward oblivion is leaning. Dark, dark, muddy, and bleak,
talking, conversing, chatting, but hardly able to speak;
toward the greatness of the pre-horror past,
Man moves from day to day, hoping 'til dawn to last. A boy seeks to become a man,
into the maelstrom of politics he stumbles;
minute to minute, he does the best he can,
Man shouts at the wind but can't be heard as the thunder rumbles. Who is the boy trying not to starve or be ignorant?
Who is the boy seeking greatness, or a another day to live?
Man has gone from baby to child to adult, fallen back to infant;
Riddley Walker wonders what humanity wants him to give. "Riddley Walker" gives us the darkest, bleakest vision of our future I have read. Will we be wise enough to avoid this awful, scrambling, stay-alive-to-breathe-one-more-breath, existence? Read this book only if you can stand looking into tomorrow and seeing a nightmare. But, if you read it, you will be amazed at the extent to which Man will go to find or reclaim greatness, and the endurance of his hope.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite book--a classic to outlive us all.
Review: This is my favorite book. Images and stories illuminate just what images and stories mean to us humans. Having bought it for no particular reason more than 15 years ago I read the first pages in the car as my wife drove home. I was stunned. I read aloud to my wife, who immediately understood. Don't believe it's hard to get into, because Riddley Walker can grab you in a heartbeat.I rarely travel without a copy. The stories and language are a comfort to me in quite a spiritual way. It was a travesty the book was out of print in the US for so long, but I worried when I heard of the new expanded edition. Thankfully Mr. Hoban's afterword is humble and loving, and leaves the mysteries for the reader to ponder. I should have known better than to worry he would mess with something so spare and perfect.Twenty years ago we were in a rural village in Nepal three long days from a road. World traveller types had begun to bring cash into the area, and we were amused by red letters on a wall saying, in English, "Everything you need you can get in this shop." I'm not kidding when I say, "Everything you need you can get in this book." Buy it.
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've ever read.
Review:
Russell Hoban, known for his clever and entertaining "Francis" series of children's books, proves his brilliance and depth as a writer in this adult novel.
Set in a frightenting future time when modern technological society (and its language) have virtually disappeared, Riddley Walker is an startling allegory about the rise and fall of humankind, our technology, religion, and values -- presented as the engaging story of a boy who becomes a man in a world we would hardly recognize.
If you appreciate ingenious use of language, metaphor, theology, and allegory, you will enjoy this book. It is truly my favorite of all time and a constant recommendation to friends
Rating:
Summary: An unforgettable masterpiece
Review: I wish there were a sixth star available, to distinguish this monumental work from your ordinary everyday Oprah novels, Atonement or House of Sand and Fog or The Shipping News, e.g. Smart people I know put this book down after a few chapters, finding it too challenging and odd. Very smart people I know find it fascinating and memorable. The smartest people I know think it may be the finest book of the last quarter century. I highly recommend reading the first three or four chapters, and then starting over, once you've mastered Riddley's dialect. Reading it aloud also helps. You will find yourself thinking and talking in Riddley-speak for months afterwards. And you will read it again and again, finding new marvels each time. I can give no higher marks to any book since Zorba The Greek.
Rating:
Summary: A novel written in Riddleyspeak!
Review: Riddley Walker is a most unusual and rewarding novel! It is narrated by Riddley, who lives in what is left of England, about two thousand years after civilization as we know it was destroyed by a nuclear war. He describes an odyssey he takes when he turns twelve years of age. What sets this book apart from others is that it is written entirely in "Riddleyspeak," a kind of pigen English that has evolved after all remnants of society and learning have disappeared. The people of Riddley's world live almost like animals, scratching out an existence, believing in superstition and legend, reduced to the most basic elements of survival. Riddley, on the other hand is semi-literate, thoughtful, and curious about the past and the future. Try this: Riddley ryts like thice and you mae fynd it hard to desifer, so youl hav to pae atenshun. He and hiz peapl r veree dffrunt frum us; thae r hard and brutl, but Riddley's werds r offen qwite funee. If you think you can read a whole book written like the above, you will enjoy the challenge of this amazing, poignant, and often humorous novel. The plot is not as important as the unique language, which speaks volumes about Riddley's life. Reading this book is a wonderful and rewarding experience!
Rating:
Summary: The most believable post-apocalyptic hero
Review: Russell Hoban's "Riddley Walker" is more than just a novel of the post-apocalypse; it is so original and odd for the language it uses and the mythology it creates, it's clearly in a class by itself, as though it could be a relic of an imaginary civilization. Hoban chooses as his setting the county of Kent in southeastern England, now called Inland, where in 1997 something called the Power Ring, encircling what used to be Canterbury, was responsible for a nuclear cataclysm called the 1 Big 1 that nearly destroyed the earth. In the thousands of years since, mankind has undergone an evolutionary breakdown and reverted to Iron Age technology and tribal society, hunting with spears, scavenging for scrap metal, and speaking a vestigial form of Cockney English. Twelve-year-old Riddley Walker, as one of the few literate people in his community, is the voice of the novel and writes in a manner that reflects the primitive speech of his society, constructing jagged sentences and spelling words phonetically. He alone senses the greatness of the civilization that was destroyed so long ago; he wonders why his own people are unable to put "boats in the air and picters on the wind." As a "connexion" man, he channels the spirit of an entity named Eusa, a mythical figure to whom the 1 Big 1 and perhaps even all of creation are attributed. The origin of Eusa's name is associated with the most famous landmark in "Cambry," the former Canterbury; an eyeless boy Riddley meets named Lissener, who proclaims himself the "Ardship of Cambry," shows the peculiar logic with which the theologies from the two epochs have merged. One day while excavating in a place called Widders Dump, Riddley finds a Punch hand puppet -- with a severed hand still inside. Abel Goodparley, Inland's "Pry Mincer," recognizes this theatrical artifact, but its purpose is lost on the Inlanders, whose only concept of entertainment is the "shows" that retell the Eusa legend. Nevertheless, this puppet is the catalyst that inspires Riddley to escape his confinement as a connexion man and forge a new path. While the story has plenty of violence, particularly when Riddley discovers a substance which, when mixed with "Saul & Peter" and "chard coal," makes a powerful explosive, it does not try to resolve any conflicts by culminating in a violent climax. Hoban wisely avoids trite devices like a final showdown between warring factions and morality lessons about good against evil, nor does he use the novel as a public service announcement to warn us about the horrors of a post-nuclear age; the focus is purely on the awakening of a civilization to the possibilities of change. The novel is admittedly difficult to read and understand; the words require extraordinary concentration to absorb what Riddley is trying to say, but after the struggle I was left with the impression of having just read a work of brilliance. Like the fiction of Joyce and Faulkner, it creates its own bold style of communication and rewards the diligent and observant reader who enjoys the challenge of confronting an unfamiliar milieu with cryptic symbols. As Riddley says, "There aint that many sir prizes in life if you take noatis of every thing."
Rating:
Summary: Redefines the Very Concept of Reading
Review: Aside from The Lord of the Rings, Hoban's Riddley Walker is the most imaginative piece of fiction I've ever read. This is a novel to savor, to prolong, if possible, to pore over, to backtrack upon, to celebrate. Do not be put off by the post-apocalyptic plot description. This is not your father's Neville Schute story. Nor is it Stephen King. This is a multi-layered, cosmic, end of days tale, that far transcends all other entries in "the genre." Hoban has been compared to Joyce, but don't be put off by that either, if you struggled through Finnegan's Wake, as most do. This is accessible. Highly so. Sure, you have to invest some effort and if you are the type of reader who has to have everything conveyed immediately to you, you will not enjoy this work. Hoban is essentially playing a game with his reader. If you enjoy riddles ("Walker is my name and I am the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddles where ever theyve took me and walking them now on this paper the same."), Hoban will definitely keep you guessing. This is probably modern fiction's most "interactive" novel. The progressive revelations clue you in as you "walk" with Riddley through Inland (England). The path is so devious, yet so honest, at the same time, that you never want Riddley to seperate from you (a motif in the work) and you never want to lose his companionship. Suffice it to say that I've been so obsessed over this book that I have joined a Hoban fan club and I can't wait to read more from this astounding author. If you can read updated Chaucer, you should have no difficulty grasping Riddley's vernacular, though there are some similarities to earlier English speech. Allow at least three chapters to get into the cadence and the inner logic of the "Riddley Speak." The only slight quibble I have, is that I wish that Hoban had written more dialogue, and a bit less first person narrative. I say this because the dialogue is the most hilarious I have read in recent memory. The Punch show interchanges are particularly amusing. They were droll enough to also make me take a whole new interest in traditional Punch and Judy Shows. These are confined primarily to the British Isles, these days, which is sad. I did learn, from one of the foremost practitioners of the tradition, that the book is very much appreciated on the part of the community that still take their get ups from venue to venue. I also would have to say that readers who may be computer programmers, IT professionals, etc., will take a particular delight in the way that Hoban works in computer language of our era into his central character's (and his culture's) partial understanding. If you are looking for something that has Pythonesque, Pynchonesque, but ultimately Riddleyesque elements, and will leave you feeling as though your brain has actually been through some mental gymnastics, but isn't sweating...order this volume, immediately.
BEK
Rating: 
Summary: Remarkable
Review: Many years after reading "Riddley Walker," what has stayed with me was Lissener's story "The Other Voyce Owl of the Worl." I can still recall nearly every word after reading it only once over 20 years ago.
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