Write Out Loud (Reviews and Writing)

“…the science fiction equivalent of Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake albeit far more interesting…”

This book was not one that had crossed my path and been added as a ‘classic must-read’. I’d honestly never heard of it before until a friend suggested I might like it. This friend’s suggestions are normally spot on, so I gave it a go.

If I was mischievous, I would describe this book as ‘The Wurzels do Punch and Judy in a post-apocalyptic England’. It’s not far from accurate, to be honest, yet doesn’t sound very complimentary. It certainly doesn’t do justice to the remarkable world Hoban has created. In short, I have no doubt this is a classic and one that will stand the test of time. I can’t even begin to think how this author thought of this concept in the first place. I’m told he took over five years with many re-drafts to get there.

So who is ‘Riddley Walker’? He’s a boy who has just come of age in a post-apocalyptic England where knowledge – of technology, of culture, of the past – has been all but lost completely. The few people that there are live in bands of foragers, somewhat akin to early humans, and tell stories with reverence bordering on religiosity. Language has changed – evolved, devolved, it is hard to tell – and stories of Eusa and The Shining Man change all the time. The stories seem to tell of the apocalyptic end that destroyed the world but they have become bound up into religious texts that every person knows by heart. They are retold in a way that mimics the Punch and Judy booths that were still just about going in the 1980s (when this book was written) but then have ‘an interpretation’ given by a member of the group to explain the meaning of the stories. Such interpretations are taken very seriously in these communities.

It is an absolutely fascinating read. I find myself thinking it is like the science fiction equivalent of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake albeit far more interesting and fun to work through. Hoban creates his own language, Kentish in style, using mash-up of place names (Canbury instead of Canterbury) and titles ( Primeminster and Westminster being two political titles). You could waste many hours working through all the strange words and working out exactly what they’re talking about. Yet, unlike Joyce’s work, you can still understand the storyline and enjoy the novel without doing any of that. Hoban judges well just exactly where to place new words so the whole thing doesn’t become gibberish.

What is also fascinating is how we’re told very little about the characters and how there’s very little of a sense of ending to the story. We don’t ever get to what really caused the apocalypse. We do discover that the stories followed so religiously are based on guesses and misunderstandings of scraps of the old world discovered here and there. We don’t get to know exactly what the ‘yellow rocks’ are that play an important role, nor why groups of people are required to dig for ancient machines.

Most of all, we don’t ever get to know who these people are. In my mind, it is clear that, though they are human, there’s some kind of connection to half-working computer technology. We’re never told if they’re cyborgs but it is obvious many of the characters – including Riddley – are connected to something that gives them prophetic visions.

I would love, therefore, to see some director’s interpretation of this book on the big screen. I can easily imagine some kind of ‘Blade Runner’ re-write of this classic that gives an interpretation of what Hoban is thinking. How you stop Punch and Judy scenes from looking farcically weird, I’m not sure; but in the hands of the right director, I’m sure this can be done.

Until then, if you fancy some sci-fi that is cerebral yet entertaining and definitely completely different to anything else out there in the fantasy world, I recommend Riddley Walker to you wholeheartedly.

My Verdict:

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

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