Book Review
Mar. 15th, 2007 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariRiddley Walker
by Russell Hoban
I picked up this book because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iralith talked about it on the drive back from the February Quest game, and it sounded interesting. I'm wicked glad I read it, because it was one of the most unique and fascinating reading experiences I've ever had.
Riddley Walker is set in the post-apocalyptic remnants of England, where human civilization is at approximately Iron-Age levels of knowledge and technology. It is so far past the nuclear apocalypse, however, that not only the events of the disaster itself but also the science and technology behind it have become heavily mythologized and fused with the few (and random) bits of pre-apocalypse culture to survive and be handed down. Thus, the knowledge and explanation of nuclear physics and technology has been embedded in a strange mixture of the story of St. Eustace, Punch and Judy shows, and Celtic myth.
The book is written in a made-up dialect that, in my opinion, is a good projection of how English would develop and/or degenerate under these conditions. It's readable, but occasionally requires some figuring out. It works quite well, though, because it forces the reader to slow down and really think about the material. And if readers don't do that with this book, they will miss so much of it. And not just the puzzle of what the myth stories told within the narrative represent, but also Hoban's exploration of allure of knowledge and discovery, the risks and benefits of them, and the conflict between the urge to preserve and (re)discover and the urge to destroy.
by Russell Hoban
I picked up this book because
iralith talked about it on the drive back from the February Quest game, and it sounded interesting. I'm wicked glad I read it, because it was one of the most unique and fascinating reading experiences I've ever had.Riddley Walker is set in the post-apocalyptic remnants of England, where human civilization is at approximately Iron-Age levels of knowledge and technology. It is so far past the nuclear apocalypse, however, that not only the events of the disaster itself but also the science and technology behind it have become heavily mythologized and fused with the few (and random) bits of pre-apocalypse culture to survive and be handed down. Thus, the knowledge and explanation of nuclear physics and technology has been embedded in a strange mixture of the story of St. Eustace, Punch and Judy shows, and Celtic myth.
The book is written in a made-up dialect that, in my opinion, is a good projection of how English would develop and/or degenerate under these conditions. It's readable, but occasionally requires some figuring out. It works quite well, though, because it forces the reader to slow down and really think about the material. And if readers don't do that with this book, they will miss so much of it. And not just the puzzle of what the myth stories told within the narrative represent, but also Hoban's exploration of allure of knowledge and discovery, the risks and benefits of them, and the conflict between the urge to preserve and (re)discover and the urge to destroy.
