Riddley Walker

Rating:
Summary: Unique, fully realized work of fiction
Review: "Riddley Walker" is undeniably one of the most unique novels I have ever come across. All plotting aside, the bizarre (yet understandable) pidgin English that it is written in sets it apart from almost every other work of fiction I have come across. The only thing that comes close is the slang in "A Clockwork Orange", but even that mishmash is normal when compared to Hoban's English. That said, Hoban's creation is fairly logical, and is easily followed with a little bit of thought.

It would be easy to overlook the quality of the narrative of this novel because of the uniqueness of its presentation, but there is much more to "Riddley Walker" than that. It is the tale of a humanity reduced to Dark Age misery by a nuclear war, but what makes it different from other apocalyptic fiction is the historical remoteness of the holocaust. It happened so long ago, and was so total that its causes have descended into mythology. At the same time, technology has become confused with religion, and while mankind yearns for better days, he's not sure what they might be.

Hoban paints a fascinating portrait of humans struggling to come to grips with their place in the world. Particularly poignant is the image his characters have of dogs, which have at this point have gone almost completely feral, and yet still exhibit a faint longing for their old masters. The humans see in the dogs an emblem of their fall from grace, and in the dogs' ferocity, a tacit reminder of something lost, although, again, they aren't sure what that might be.

Perhaps the most intriguing element of the novel, however, is fragments of history that have been reassembled into a moral imperative for the power elite (such as they are). To the reader, the concepts seem ridiculous, but in them Hoban makes a powerful statement about the need to believe in something bigger than ourselves. Just think about how we struggle to come to grips with the past today; a history which is documented with relative thoroughness and which spans fairly well delineated arcs. Now imagine trying to process that same history after an apocalypse of unimaginable scope, and you will have some appreciation of what Hoban explores in "Riddley Walker".

This is a novel that can be read fairly quickly, and enjoyed simply as a rather unique work of post-apocalyptic fiction. However, if you take your time with it, and really think through what the language and the characters' motivations, I suspect you will be surprised at the tremendous depth this work possesses. I was astonished at how much it made me think about my own worldviews and how much context is critical to their meaning. "Riddley Walker" is definitely a literary highlight of the genre, and a novel that is not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating mutated English; unengaging story
Review: What I liked: Hoban has created a believable future form of British English for this post-apocalyptic story, narrated by a boy who has just become a man at age twelve. I thought it might get tiresome to read an entire book in this mutated English, but Hoban pulls it off. After only a page or two, I was into it, and I enjoyed the language all the way through. (Try reading it aloud when you having trouble making sense of it.)

What I didn't like: I got bored about halfway through. I expected a gradual uncovering of interesting details of England's history from our time through Riddley Walker's time--when the culture of "Inland" is non-industrial and mostly illiterate, with packs of wild dogs everywhere--but you don't learn much more than can be inferred early on. Or else I expected Hoban to make more of one of the issues he plays with, like how a culture's stories evolve or the value of moving forward even when what's ahead is troublesome. I wanted more of a plot or a point. But maybe I just missed it, or maybe that just reveals my plebian taste in fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Better than a Vonnegut clusterf***
Review: When I first read this book several years ago, I was completely taken in by the abstract language and all the possibilities it allowed for interpretation. I have lent this book to many people since then, and maybe 1 or 2 have finished it because they seem to have a hard time with the way it is written, although they seem to enjoy the story. This is definitely something one should keep in mind when purchasing this book: be ready for a possible struggle when trying to decipher this questionably intuitive text.

If one does take the time, however, they are thrown headlong into a world that most of the time makes little logical sense, but speaks to a part of the subconcious which understands words and suggestions that the concious mind often finds queer and nonsensical. Even if one does not understand Mr. Hoban's references to the well-known painting of St. Eustace (part of which can be found on any bottle of Jagermeister) and the Punch and Judy puppet tradition, there is the understanding of the sensation he is expressing by using these symbols. It wasn't until years later that I understood his clever references, and while they were interesting in fleshing out the culture of the people, they were far from the main point of the novel.

Anyone who has read Vonnegut and think that he messes with your head needs to give Hoban a try. I guarantee that Hoban is a lot more coherent, concentrated, universal, and, if nothing else, technically a far superior writer.

Rating:
Summary: Yes!
Review: This is one of the most important books of last century, especially as a contrasting and more fully realized vision of the future than the dystopia of Clockwork Orange. People balk at the book's language, but its reading becomes familiar very quickly because Riddley's voice rings so clear in the reader's head.

Rating:
Summary: My desert island book
Review: If you're going to be stranded forever on a desert island and could take one book, which would it be? This is my choice. I've read it at least once a year for the past 20 years. Each time I have found it no less challenging...and no less rewarding. Each time I laugh, I cry, I rejoice and despair, and I tell everyone around me who will listen that they must read /Riddley Walker/. Hoban has written half a dozen breathtaking novels about life and death, history and the future, free will and predestination, human nature and human culture, belief and practice--and I can't for the life of me understand why he isn't considered Earth's Author Laureate. He has also written dozens of deep-hearted children's books, including the Frances The Badger series (which were greatly loved in my adopted home state of Wisconsin). Perhaps some of the reviews below make it clear why this man is so underappreciated. In this age of prefab thinking and easily packaged messages, he's just plain too challenging for most people. No spoon feeding. No easy outs. /Riddley Walker/ is not a book for people accustomed to hearing what they think they want to hear. But for people who can do the work of meeting him halfway...jeez, the riches! Hoban grapples with big questions in this novel: --Are we destined, as a species, to destroy ourselves? --What is violence, and why do people do it? --What is religion, and where does it come from? --Who, or what, is god? --What can we look forward to, if we continue trying to blow ourselves up? --Is there a relationship between maturity/immaturity and violence? --What is the nature of human memory? --What the hell *is* it with men, anyway? There is no sniveling in this book. The harsh, post-apocalyptic society that Riddley inhabits is what it is--people don't wander around whining about how things are. And yet there is a deeply touching moment where Riddley himself realizes how far humanity has fallen from what it once was. The grief of that simple moment impacted me far more than any accounts of nuclear/apocalyptic horror. It's easy to create megadeath. What's harder is the housework of the aftermath. There is nothing easy about this book. Nothing facile. Nothing shallow. Every word, every action, is holographic. Hoban's sense of humor is a joy. The puns, neologisms, back-formations, and memory fragments of his invented dialect lack all irony and self-consciousness. Riddley's tribal initiation as a man, and his manhood journey, are stunningly crafted and told. Showing us a world where an Iron-Age-scavenger people have inherited the principles of nuclear physics through oral tradition, while remembering (misremembering?) the green gods--Hoban nudges us, or maybe shoves us, in the direction of giving serious thought to who we are, where we want to go. This book is a wake-up call to a species of violent primates who mistake their hearts for evil and their opposable thumbs for divinity. And who have been taught to expect that language and storytelling should be easy. Eliot

Rating:
Summary: language definitely a barrier
Review: Out of over 200 books I've bought at Amazon, this is the first I've ever returned. I found the made-up language exceptionally annoying -- the entire book is written in this pre-literate style. This worked less well than other books (e.g., Clockwork Orange) where the extra language adds color or describes foreign ideas. Other reviewers have really liked this book, but I think you should take a look at it in the off-line bookstore before you buy from Amazon.

Rating:
Summary: A WORK OF GENIUS, UNQUALIFIED
Review: A Wells Fargo bank teller named Joe recommended this book to me;what a favor, what a gift, and all I was doing is depositing a check. Without any qualification whatsoever, this is an original work of genius, completely realized, profound, gripping, extremely funny, utterly without padding almost a poem in that way, a brilliant story arc, it held me in thrall, it has me in awe. It takes about 10 pages to get used to the language, then you realize it could be no other way.

Rating:
Summary: Little Shynin Book
Review: This book has to be one of the foremost literary achievements of the twentieth century. Where for other writers the creation of a new language would be a novel in itself, or an excuse to show off, Russell Hoban's brilliant use of language is just one element of a perfectly created and deeply human world. Moreover, and this is not mentioned enough, the narrative of Riddley Walker is one of the most exciting and well paced in recent fiction. You literally cannot put the book down for more than a few hours at a time. Also, while so many futuristic narratives rely on one system of religion or God, Hoban brilliantly echoes the confusion of today's world by creating several connected strands of thought all fighting with each other, with no clear end in sight, so that often (literally) the left hand does not know what the right is doing. However, you will treasure this book most for the humanity, the urge to carry on, and the 'hoap' of a better future, no matter how desperate the present may be. A masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is an excellent and thought provoking story. I read this book for a course in religion. We studied the world and belief system that Hoban has created in this post-apocalyptic world. It takes a while to get into the garbled speech of the inhabitants but there are so many references to things we do as humans that are causing the downfall of our society that it may just wake some people and get them to change their ways for the better. There are many lessons to be learned from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Read this! Or it's ARGA WARGA for you!
Review: "Riddley Walker" is one of the most memorable books I have ever read, and anyone who rises to the challenge will never regret it. It takes place in an England of a hazy, distant, post-apocalyptic future and is told in the first person by the title character. It seems Riddley is one of the very few people in his Neo-Iron Age culture who actually knows how to read and write, and he documents his travels and trevails in a language that takes a little getting used to. I found myself reading many sentences out loud to figure out what exactly was being said, but once I hit my stride the book was very enjoyable. By the end of this book, when you find out how young Riddley really is, you realize that there may be some hope for civilization after all. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.