Riddley Walker
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Riddley Walker is a novel by Russell Hoban, first published in 1980. It is generally regarded as science fiction and won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel in 1982, as well as an Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award in 1983.
Though its premise is similar to other post-apocalyptic novels such as A Canticle for Leibowitz, Riddley Walker is unusual in its style and focus. The narrator, Riddley, speaks in an evolved form of English, the spelling of which has changed considerably and in which many modern words (especially technological and religious terms) have changed in meaning; many of the place names are puns, such as "Dog Et" for Dargate, and "Do It Over" for Dover. While the unfamiliar language is a projection of how historical linguistics might apply in the future, it also provides clues to the nature of life in Riddley's world (e.g., being "et" by wild dogs is a common fate), and creates suspense as the reader gradually comes to understand some of the references of which Riddley is unaware. Religious philosophy and the supernatural are also central to the novel, elements which are also present in Leibowitz but which Hoban treats in a more allusive, mystical sense, drawing on elements of many religious traditions. Hoban also draws on the history of his adopted country, including Celtic mythology and Punch and Judy.
Hoban began writing the novel in 1974, inspired by the medieval wall painting of the legend of Saint Eustace at Canterbury Cathedral. It is his best-known adult novel, and a unique departure from his other work although he has continued to explore some of the same themes in other settings.
The novel is set at an unspecified time hundreds or possibly thousands of years from the present, after a nuclear war has destroyed our civilization. The novel's characters live a harsh life in a small area which is presently the English county of Kent, and know nothing of the world outside of "Inland" (England). Their level of civilization is similar to England's prehistoric Iron Age, although they do not produce their own iron but salvage it from ancient machinery. Church and state have combined into one secretive institution, whose mythology, partly based on misremembered stories of the war, is enacted in puppet shows. The main action of the story begins when the young narrator, Riddley, stumbles upon efforts to recreate a weapon of the ancient world.
External links
- Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker (http://www.ocelotfactory.com/hoban/riddley.html)
- Riddley Walker Annotations (http://www.graphesthesia.com/rw/)