Word: riddley
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Dates: during 1981-1981
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...RIDDLEY WALKER by Russell Hoban
Those whose attention spans have shrunk to the length of a station break are going to find Riddley Walker easy to bypass. The novel's first sentence, for example, is not exactly a conventional grabber: "On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen." Even patient readers are likely to riffle pages at this point, trying to find...
Patchwork language is an essential part of Author Russell Hoban's story. Hoban, 55, who has written children's books and three previous novels, sets Riddley Walker in the southeast corner of England, some 2,500 years into a badly damaged and degraded future. A nuclear holocaust, which occurred near the end of the 20th century, has forced civilization to start over again at ground zero. Progress has been slow. People huddle together in small enclaves, fighting off the elements, packs of killer dogs and occasionally, one another. A semblance of central government exists in the person...
When his father dies, young Riddley Walker becomes his village's "new connexion man," the one who interprets the shows and reality in general. Some of his colleagues think that Riddley may also possess "the follerme," a mystical ability lead others and to make things happen. Indeed, destiny tugs the boy toward the ancient holy center of Cambry (Canterbury), where an odd pilgrimage of people and elements has arrived. This combination, if successful, will result in the rediscovery of gunpowder...
There is never much doubt that this worst will happen, that these bedraggled survivors will regain some of the "cleverness" that almost destroyed them before. Riddley's narrative generates a different kind of suspense: the fascination of watching a strange world evolve out of unfamiliar words. Impoverished as it is Riddley's language can still generate unexpected riches. People in trouble are "living on burrow time." Two of the sciences that the nuclear "barms" wiped out are "chemistery and fizzics." When a person is trying to think amid too much noise he complains of "inner fearents." Riddley sometimes...