Riddley Walker, a book review

Following is a short review of Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban; for a slightly more in-depth look, check out my post at Retrospeculative…

Riddley Walker is a struggle to read; some people might find that reading sections out loud helps, and it was designed that way, written in phonetic vernacular, with a British accent in mind (and, to be specific, an accent from the county of Kent). Punctuation is ignored, with the exception of periods. There is a limited vocabulary; so, as the reader progresses through the novel, it becomes easier to decipher the text, a first-person narrative by the protagonist, Riddley Walker, who is considered a literate man in his world although he is only twelve years old.

The book is written in a manner that forces the reader to slow down in order to demystify the story; just as Riddley Walker must slowly puzzle things out for himself (by the way, the names of characters in the book are representations of their personalities: Riddley Walker, Fister Crunchman, Abel Goodparley, etcetera). I assume that the book was purposely written so that the reader is forced to sound some sections aloud in order to comprehend the meaning; in Riddley’s world, information is shared orally, and Riddley’s writings form the possibility of a re-invented media.

The reader soon realizes that the events take place in England (‘Inland’) sometime after an apocalyptic, nuclear event (it is stated in the novel that over 2,400 years have passed since the apocalypse, but that seems too long a time for the slight degradation in language; after all, it is still recognizable. There are many misguided ‘facts’ within the novel and I suspect that less time has passed than what is stated). Riddley’s world is slowly revealed through the mists of confusion: there are struggles between agricultural groups and hunter-gatherers, wild dog-packs terrorize the countryside, and the government distributes its politico-mythic messages using portable puppet theatres (politically revamped Punch and Judy shows).

The plot is interesting, but much of the enjoyment comes from untangling the language; it immerses the reader, who must ‘riddle’ things out as s/he ‘walks’ through the story.

There is a short glossary at the end of the book, but if you’d like some further help while reading, the sites listed below are useful (I found that reading a chapter and then perusing the annotations, while flipping through the pages of the chapter again, solidified the story).

Recommended; but be forewarned, it is probably not a novel to take for a casual read on the beach this summer.

.

A couple of resources (that also contain links to other resources):

Riddley Walker Annotations: with chapter-by-chapter notes and much more.

Russell Hoban’s official website

.

.

.

 

The Einstein Intersection, a book review

Will our stories outlive us; and, if so, how will we be perceived when they are found?

Below is a short review of Samuel R. Delany’s The Einstein Intersection (1967); I’ve posted a more thorough review at Retrospeculative.

I think in this short novel, Delany is showing off (or he was a heck of a lot smarter than I was at the tender age of twenty-three), but if the reader can struggle through the confusing patches, there are delights to be had. Delany is definitely not for everyone, but there is some wonderfully lyrical writing, and the novel is quite satisfying if you’re able to immerse yourself in his world-vision. It amazes me that Delany was published in a pulp fiction market. His working title for the book was A Fabulous, Formless Darkness (from a William Butler Yeats work he’d quoted), but it was ‘re-worked’ by the publisher, Ace Books (of  garish covers and low-priced packaging fame). Ace‘s main audience was teenage boys who wanted formulaic plots with the usual science fiction stereotypes. Delany employed the stereotypes, but twisted them into unusual perspectives. Even though he set his stories far in the future, they were designed to describe the world as it was.

The novel takes place on Earth; however, it is set tens-of-thousands of years into the future: myths run rampant and are only partially explained at the crossroads of logic and irrationality (with tongue firmly planted in cheek, I’d suggest searching at the corner of Einstein Street and Gödel Avenue). Two of the major themes are travel, through space,  time, and thought, as echoed in Delany’s travels through the Mediterranean, Spain, and Greece (which he relates in between-chapter notes), and difference from the ‘norm’, as demonstrated by the mutating aliens, who are attempting to maintain a sense of conformity while sifting through the gossamer memories of a sentient species — humanity — that has vanished.

The reader is immersed in the alien’s milieu, just as the aliens are immersed in the quagmire of humanity’s psychic memories. Within the body of the novel, Delany has included some travel-notes, which he wrote while wandering through foreign lands, creating the novel. At one point [p.119], he writes: “…perhaps on rewriting I shall change Kid Death’s hair from black to red.”  But the reader has already encountered the character, and his hair is red, which demonstrates Delany’s interest in time, events in time, and awareness; what has been, what might have been, and what is. And he has also set up a conscious association between the author, the reader, and the words on the page (something he does to a dizzying degree in Dhalgren). At another point [p. 65], Delany implicitly states that “…the central subject of the book is myth.”

It is a book full of myth and peppered with confusion; nevertheless, if you enjoy a story that requires some cobbling together and leaves you thinking after you finish, I highly recommend it; along with Dhalgren, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, and the Return to Nevèrÿon series, it displays Delany at his mythical best.

.

.

.

 

The Road, a book review

In The Road, Cormac McCarthy unveils a bleak notion of humanity’s dark side, similar in many ways to the brutality that developed in José Saramago’s Blindness; but whereas the blindness of Saramago’s novel is milky-white, in McCarthy’s brutal world the view is as dark as coal and ash: Night dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world (p. 3). Ash is everywhere, the vestiges of a once vibrant world, destroyed in an apocalyptic event. The cause of the event is never revealed: it is the aftermath that we are immersed into as we follow an unnamed father and son along their nightmarish journey along the road to the sea (the novel takes no prisoners: there is no escape, and no relief for the reader).

Food is scarce (there seems to be no living things other than humans), and cannibalism is rampant. Groups of bestialized humans roam the road, hunting for human livestock. This is the backdrop for the story’s relationship between a father and his son, who are survivors with little hope of redemption (no names are shared in the story: the only time a character shares a name, it is false: names are trappings from a different world). The father explains to his son that they are the good-guys (the civilized, the ‘carriers of fire’), but the son witnesses his father’s descent: the man has begun to lose his sense of humanity because his son must be protected at all costs. Their relationship —expressed in sparse conversations — is complex; filled with faith, love, desperation, codependence, and a tenuous grip on hope.

The father’s stifled memories of the time before the disaster are poignant: …he would begin to sob uncontrollably but it was not about death. He wasnt sure what it was about but he thought it was about beauty or about goodness. Things that he’d no longer any way to think about at all (p. 129 – 130).  [McCarthy, for the most part, shuns punctuation].

We should appreciate this world and hold it dear; The Road is a disturbing, cautionary tale; and, as such, it succeeds wonderfully. It is a quick read, seemingly simple, but it hooks the reader, and evokes an astonishing, emotional response.

Recommended.

.

.

.