Rating: 
Summary: Should be a compulsory read!
Review: Hoban's most experimental and widely acknowledged as his best novel relates the tale of a young man trying to re-piece his world and the world of that around him in a post-apocalyptic era. The novel, written in a post nuclear dailect, describes Riddley Walker's journey in the search for truth and the important decisions he must make on the way. Littered throughout the novel are remnants of a previous world, either physical in the shape of a discarded Mr Punch or as various fables that distort the young man's views on the way life used to be. Hoban demands of the reader an understanding of both religion and science which are indistinquishable throughout the journey, leading to the ultimate climax of which path Riddley and the rest of his civilization will re-tread.A triumph for modern fiction as we realise our own position in a nuclear fueled society itself plagued by the supernatural and fable. Riddley Walker leaves no room for optimism, the truth is out there but whether we have the ability to see it is itself unclear.
Rating:
Summary: a book to read three times
Review: Riddley Walker is a wonderful novel. I can't understand how it ever went out of print. The book is very thought provoking, and there are obviously several interpretations: One being that although the setting is in the distant future the book is very much about today and the scientific revolution that got us to this point. I think the time span between now and the distant future time of Riddley represents the vast distance between all the knowledge -- all the way back to Pythagorus -- that created the technology that makes our world tick and the common understanding of just what that knowledge is. Even for the techies of today that distance is vast, and no one person can possibly cram everything in their head from Kepler, Laplace and Newton, to Einstein, Weinberg and Schottky. The more popular of those great scientists have more or less been reinvented as mythical magicians of pop science, just as the legacy of our culture as a whole has in Riddley Walker become the stuff of legends and humorous misconstructions of the past. I imagine that if Einstein were to come back from the dead and see how pop science writers like Gary Nuvak have interpreted his discoveries, he would get just as much of a laugh as I did from Riddley Walker. I can't wait to read the next Russel Hoban novel, something about someone's grotto I heard. The man has quite a strange and wonderful imagination.
Rating:
Summary: a unique and important work af literature
Review: Personally, Riddley Walker is one of my favorite books of all time, along with Don Quixote, 1984, Murphy, Huck Finn, A Clockwork Orange, and other well known classics. What I love most about Hoban's masterpiece is the futuristic language and entertainment form he invented for Riddley Walker's society. This language is nothing like the slang Burgess created in A Clockwork Orange, a slang derived in part from a separate language. Instead, Hoban invented a futuristic dialect of english by mimicking and grossly exagerating the peculiar pattern of linguistic evolution which resulted in current english; and, through the implied evolution from our current language to Riddley's language, Hoban subtly and indirectly reveals the incongruities of society today relative to the past: technologically obsessed on one hand, and always becoming more "vancit" (advanced), yet still as crude and ignorant as cave men on the other hand. Contrary to the Baconian idea of social harmony as a product of science and progress, hostility and violence seem to grow, or at least to continue unabated, in spite of all our technological progress. This is the great paradox of modern life revealed through Riddley Walker's language. In parallel to the meaning of Riddley's language, the primary entertainment of Riddley Walker's culture, the puppetry, is a metaphor of modern entertainment in relation to its' history: more and more sex, lies, and violence, and less and less intellectual stimulation. It's great to see that Riddley Walker is being reprinted. The book will no doubt continue to grow in popularity and recognition for the classic it is.
Rating:
Summary: An Overlooked Classic
Review: RIDDLEY WALKER is an engaging, challenging and touching novel that warrrants multiple readings. Hoban has written what i imagine to be a perfect novel. It is a grand experiment in language where form and content converge, allowing Hoban to reveal more about Riddley's world than convention would allow for. It is nothing short of appalling that this book ever went out of print--it is a masterpiece of postmodern (ick)literature and is equally inspiring for writers and readers. This should be taught in every modern American literature course. Make everyone read it.
Rating: 
Summary: This book has haunted me since I first read it in 1983!
Review: I first read this as part of my senior year english lit class at the Air Force Academy. It was hard at first but fell in love with its own language by the end of the book. I have since regretted sellingthe book back. Two years ago I looked for it at Borders, but they told me it was out of print. Finally find its reprint here on Amazon.com.. I bought it again. A haunting book of the future which is reminiscent of the cave man era.
Rating:
Summary: A cautionary tale told with warmth and tremendous insight
Review: Riddley Walker is the tale of a boy who becomes a catalyst of change in a remote, post-apocalyptic society built on myth and misinformation about its common past. Riddley is drawn into a series of events which reunite the three ingredients of gunpowder... sulphur (yeller boy), charcoal (chard coal), and saltpeter (Saul & Peter). Each ingredient is viewed with reverent awe in Riddley's world simply because it is linked to a distant, powerful and mysterious past that ended quite suddenly. Understanding this connection is probably the most critical element to grasping this story. It took me a few readings to put it together, and from that point forward, the story unfolded with amazing clarity. As the story progresses, the reader comes to the realization that when Riddley's role in the reunification of the three ingredients reaches its conclusion, the cycle of human folly will be complete and mankind will once again set off on a course of mass self-destruction. This is a fascinating tale that functions brilliantly on many levels, and demands much from the reader. I've read this book many times since first buying it in 1981, and I've lost track of the copies I've bought and given to others to read. Each reading uncovers a deeper, more cerebral layer of the story, and reveals more of the genius that went into its writing. I feel this is one of the most important novels of the 20th Century. It's a shame it isn't better known, but perhaps that's the beauty of this book. It's content and message isn't easily accessible to the average reader used to a steady diet of commercially published pablum, but it's well worth the work.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful, artful, utterly beguiling
Review: A strange and perfectly realized story of where we are heading. By far Hoban's best adult novel, to my way of thinking, I keep extra copies on hand to loan out. It is surprising, as it was on the NY Times Best Seller List in the 80's, how few people have ever heard of this book, a book like no other I have ever read. Definitely one of the 2 or 3 books I would like to be stranded with on a desert island!
Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: I discovered Russell Hoban with one of his early novels "A Mouse and his Child" and have been hooked on him ever since. My children are familiar with his "Francis" children books. Riddley Walker has always facinated me with its own language style and mysteries. On first reading, there were many concepts I did not clearly understand and I figured the idea of it and its beauty is that it is whatever you want to read into the "tiny atoms of it". I always imagined that EUSA stood for Europe/USA - I wonder if I am alone in this? I have always had trouble with the direct meaning of "Folleree" and "Folleroo" and would like to hear your thoughts. Riddley Walker is the first book where I read the word "blip" which has become part of everyday langauage. What a great pleasure it would be to have Russell Hoban over for dinner!!!
Rating:
Summary: EUSA Hates Me...
Review: God must hate me...having not re-read this life changing work for a decade, and finding it (shamefully) out of print in the states, I ordered a copy from the U.K. It was everything I remembered it to be and more - but what did I find a week after finishing my British copy?? A NEW EXPANDED EDITION AVAILABLE IN THE STATES AND FOR _LESS_ THAN I PAID TO IMPORT MY OLD EDITION!!!!!! Like I said, EUSA must hate me.... putcher...putcher...putcher!!!
Rating:
Summary: This ain't no kiddies tale. . .
Review: It's all about a post-armageddon arms race.
| 
