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99 Novels: The Final Nine: Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
Walker is my name and I am the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever theyve took me and walking them now on this paper the same.
I dont think it makes no differents where you start the telling of a thing. You never know where it begun realy. No moren you know where you begun your oan self. You myt know the place and day and time of day when you ben beartht. You myt even know the place and day and time when you been got. That dont mean nothing tho. You stil dont know where you begun.
I loved Riddley Walker from beginning to end, partly just because, like Anthony Burgess, I am a sucker for made-up future dialects. In Riddley Walker something or other blew up a long time ago, and London-whatever-that-was went under water, and it was dark a long time until the days came back, but came back wrong. Or maybe it happened some other way, you can't be sure with tales. The Pry Mincer and the Wes Mincer have been doing instructive puppet shows about it so long that who knows what's real and what's just made up for politics? Anyhow some people are getting back the ways of writing things down that you used to have, so Riddley Walker, 12, is writing this down for you, whoever you are, in the dark future of the dark future, or wherever people live who read these things.
The made-up futurelect is beautiful as these things go, and easier to read than Gravity's Rainbow. Here's another sample for you!
Every morning they were counting every thing to see if any thing ben took off in the nite. How many goats how many cows how many measurs weat and barly. Cudnt stop ther counting which wer clevverness and making mor the same. They said, 'Them as counts counts moren them as dont count.'
Counting counting they wer all the time. They had iron then and big fire they had towns of parpety. They had machines et numbers up. They fed them numbers and they fractiont out the Power of things. They had the Nos. of the rain bow and the Power of the air all workit out with counting which is how they got boats in the air and picters on the wind. Counting clevverness is what it wer.
When they had all them things and marvelsome they cudnt sleap realy they dint have no res. They were stressing ther self and straining all the time with counting. They said, 'What good is nite its only dark time it aint no good for nothing only them as want to sly and sneak and take our parpety a way.' They los out of memberment who nite wer. They jus wantit day time all the time and they wer going to do it with the Master Chaynjis.
They had the Nos. of the sun and moon all fractiont out and fed to the machines. They said, 'Wewl put all the Nos. in to 1 Big 1 and that wil be the No. of the Master Chaynjis.' They bilt the Power Ring thats where you see the Ring Ditch now. They put in the 1 Big 1 and woosht it roun there come a flash of lite then bigger nor the woal worl and it ternt the nite to day. Then every thing gone black. Nothing only nite for years on end.
Of course if it had really been 2300 years since Eusa and Mr Clevver tore apart the Little Shyning Man of the Addom (as another version of the story goes), you wouldn't expect to be able to understand Riddley's language at all (and how would the k in "know" have survived any period of illiteracy? You'd have to start your own worldbuilding wiki just to explain it). But this is a nice evocative middle ground, where every variant spelling blooms with punny exegesis.
This book was a joy to read. I spent most of it thinking that I liked the language and the setting but wasn't going to care very much about the plot. But it pulled an Ishiguro, as we call it in my house when a book tricks you into thinking you're riding calmly above it right up until it suddenly drowns you with a tidal wave of your own feelings. By the end it got its roots into me and they're still holding on.
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Ahem. Anyway, I had not realized that he had written anything but Frances, but looking at his Wikipedia it appears that he wrote Many Things. Including Riddley Walker! Who knew!
Also very excited on general principle that you have reached The Final Nine. Does finishing Riddley Walker mean that you're now down to The Final Eight?
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And yes! Eight books remaining, one of which is Gravity's Rainbow. I wish I could stop harping on Gravity's Rainbow, or at least harp more intelligently, but clearly I don't wish it hard enough.
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when a book tricks you into thinking you're riding calmly above it right up until it suddenly drowns you with a tidal wave of your own feelings. By the end it got its roots into me and they're still holding on.
Aww.
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This is a serious problem I have with books, most notably books by Kazuo Ishiguro, but just books in general, really. You'd think by now I'd have learned to see it coming.
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