Riddley Walker

Well I have to say, this was not one of my favorite reads.  Today’s read, Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, which was fitting for the holiday weekend. Labor Day, was a MAJOR labor for me.  While it was awarded many great book awards, I am not the best at reading post-apocalyptic stories.  If that wasn’t bad enough… it was written in an English dialect of sorts, from a part of Great Britain “tribal” area.  With that as a backdrop, it was a grueling reading… here’s just a lit’ bit for your reviewing pleasure….

The Littl man sed, NO Eusa that wuzen no dream nor this ain no dream.  Its aul 1 thing nor you cant wayk up owt uv it. Eusa sed, I can dy owt uv it tho cant I. The Littl Man sed, Easu yu dy owt uv this plays & yul jus fyn me in a nuther plays. Yul fyn me in the wud yyl fyn me on the water lyk yu foun in the stoan.  Yu luk enne wayr & Iwl be thayr.

 Yes over 220 pages of this drivel… sorry, futuristic-loving friends.  While I like to pay attention, it is hard reading in a language obstructed by the author for reading pleasure.  But the story is about Riddley Walker.  Our protagonist is living in the future, roughly 200 years after a nuclear holocaust.  From there we enter a stream of consciousness, “thought parade,” of our character… from the death of his father, which he was innocently involved, when a group of them were trying to recreate a weapon that they found from the “ancient world” in his hope to uncover history of man.  There are many attempts at humor (the killing of the wild boar, or the traveling pack of dogs with Riddley as the entourage produces shows with puppets like those of the infamous “Punch and Judy”).  Riddley’s journey is full of uncovering things from the past, which the author toys with the reader.  Again, trying to decipher the language was so problematic for me, I lost most of the story and the fun things Riddley was discovering.  This was the most laborious book I have had to read in some time.  Again, reading the reviews from GoodReads (an on-line book review blog of sorts) to the info on the author, I clearly missed something.  Maybe it was my frame of reference and I had to be more open to the setting, the author’s “original” idea or something else, I just could not get into it.  I know I missed much of the underlying purposes of the journey.  Hard to get beyond it… but I did finish, though unsure of most of what I read.  Sorry to be so sour.  Just not my idea of a fun read.  Well, many of this year’s book choices of the RAs are sci-fi/futuristic books, so I may be in for a long, long winter….

Of course, I hope I get lots of Riddley fans to note their comments below this post! And note all that I missed out on.