Riddley Walker

Russell Hoban

I have heard Riddley Walker praised as a classic in the making many times. I finally got my hands on a copy and gave it a try, and for all I know, those who call it such are correct. I couldn't tell. Hoban buys completely into the idea of creating a dialect that is only vaguely resembling English, and worse, he has his narrator use it for the whole novel. I'm sure there are those out there who became quickly fluent in it and could read this at the same speed they read any other novel, but I am incapable of such things. Every page took me at least ten minutes to get through. The end result is that the book is frustrating, incoherent, and ultimately unreadable. Not one to pick up if you don't like spending a long, long time poring over material; if you do, you'd be better off reading incomprehensible literary criticism. At least it passes for English.