Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker is set two thousand years after a nuclear exchange. England has been knocked back to the iron age and is just rediscovering the formula for gunpowder. What is left of the government communicates through puppet shows. Variations on Punch and Judy can always draw a crowd. Cults abound. Around Canterbury, now called Cambry, St. Eustace is a central religious figure associated with the old technological age. Riddley Walker, a young man on his own after the death of his father, takes an iconic trip to the ruins of the cathedral at Canterbury. Riddley speaks a demotic dialect all his own that is easier to listen to than it is to read by eye.
Riddley’s world will remind you of A Canticle for Leibowitz, and it influenced the far-future Hawaiian dialect in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.
It will be worth your time to read the author’s note and glossary at the end of the expanded edition. ( )

The book started as a challenge in deductive reasoning to understand its colloquialisms. After a few chapters the tone became more familiar and overall the book was a fun read. ( )

Fantastic idea and well executed...but I stopped caring about the journey and, eventually, the characters. ( )

I tried, I really did. But I couldn't get past 35% I had to keep consulting an online annotated version to help decipher the text. Even beside the spelling, grammar and new words, there were just too many UK-specific terms and words that I'm unfamiliar with (like getting from "helping the qwirys" is derived from the modern "helping the police with their inquiries"- a term for police torture). So it's all just too much work to offset the entertainment value.

'The onlyes power is no power. Wel now I sust that wernt qwite it. It aint that its no power. Its the not strurgling for power."

An extraordinary novel of imagination, craft, and heart. What happens when those of us that remain find ourselves wandering stunned and lost? Debating fight or flight? Measuring the degree to which moving on matters? If we're lucky we discover the moment, we release the ego, we let go and find acceptance. We embrace the only dance there is. I loved this book. ( )