Riddley Walker

Russell Hoban

He said, 'Wel no I dint make it up you cant make up nothing in your head no moren you can make up what you see. You know what I mean may be what you see aint all ways there so you cud reach out and touch it but its there some kynd of way and it come from some where. That place Hagmans Il I use to wunner about it every time we come by it til finely that story come in to my head. That story cudnt come out of no where cud it so it musve coe out of some where. Parbly it ben in that place only the idear of it come to me there. That dont make no odds. That storys jus what ever it is and thats what storys are.'

The cover of the edition I read had the quote "Attempts the impossible...and achieves it" on it, but I would only agree if the impossible is getting such a ambiguously composed book published. Sometimes an author makes the decision to be adventurous, this is the case with Riddley Walker. Unfortunately the story does not have any of the adventurousness of its author. The entire tale, related in the first person, is composed in some phonetic dialect which is not always as clear as it could be. Indeed it took me some time to figure out that it was set in a post-apocalyptic world and not the distant past. While Hoban's choice to use such a unorthodox style gives the entire book a sense of mystery, it's not the kind of mystery which keeps a reader turning pages--it's the type which makes the reader through up his hands in disgust and leave off reading the book all-together. While it seems at times that Hoban was reaching for some life in his narrative, some mystery and a very colloquial feeling, he is no James Joyce. At least the incomprehensibility of Finnigan's Wake had some real brilliance behind it. Not so for Riddley Walker.
While I must admit the reason I picked out Riddley Walker rather than any other book was that it was written with such a unique voice. But the problem was that this unique voice got in the way of the plot. I still am not sure about quite a few points in the book. I will say that it was a very pleasant feeling to understand things and realize the many witty allusions as I went along. But I don't think I realized near as many of these are there were in the book. If you choose to read Riddley Walker expect to get a good mental workout and leave the scene with a whole bunch of questions (mostly about unnecessary things, but they will plague you all the same). 4/10