I recently had a craving to re-read Riddley Walker. It was written in 1980 in a time of concern about nuclear war and science gone wrong, not without reason. Survivors in Britain (1975-1977) and The Quiet Earth (NZ 1981) outlined a post apocalyptic world and the unnerving graphic novel When the wind blows told the story of a naive couple in Britain, unprepared by a naive or uncaring government.
Riddley Walker is a 12 year-old boy living in a harsh and violent society in a damaged and broken land. People are living in fenced area, farms or wandering the road, dogs rove in packs and women seem to have a closeted and enclosed life. Many of the men show genetic damage and there is an overriding desire to find the ‘cleverness’ of the past and the way to make the ‘1 Big 1’.
While it’s a harsh view of a future world there’s also some humour and a lot of cleverness in the many puns Hoban creates. It was helpful in this re-reading to have access to Riddley Walker Annotations which explains many of the references and puns and wordplays, for example “a farring seakert from the other side” is a reference to a far off traveller from overseas but also a pun on Foreign Secretary.
The book shows how remnants of idea and language can be reused to create new meaning and new stories. There’s the story of St Eustace and the play of Punch and Judy, biblical references that escape me and language morphs – ‘perweal’, ‘manooring ther arrabl’, ‘Pry Mincer’, ‘Cambry’ and the reused computer words ‘we pult datter and we pirntowt‘.
There are interpretations from their present world view of old stories:
“A Legend that’s a picter what’s depicted which is to say to say picert on a wall its done with some kind of paint callit fidelity. St. is short for sent” (p 120).
There are themes of religious intolerance, human stupidity, mis interpretation, human cruelty, interactions and connections with dogs, leadership and so many more.
And through it all the words and the world view of Riddley, the boy who at twelve begins a physical and perhaps spiritual journey to adulthood.
It’s a fascinating and complex book, and in 5-10 years, I may uncover more layers of meaning.
CrippleCreak 