Talk:Riddley Walker

Untitled

I took out the reference to "ergodic literature." I don't think this is a good example of ergodic literature as Espen Aarseth defines it -- just reading an accent doesn't require physical interaction from the reader, the way HTML text or video games do. That ok? Is there some definition of ergodic I'm missing? --Gus andrews (talk) 21:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

"at least 2000 years from the present": this isn't necessarily true, is it? Given the variation in language is more like 300 years, I assumed that Goodparley is wrong and "Our Count" is in fact simply A.D. and not a restart. —Ashley Y 06:47, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

Could be - but the cultural distance, in terms of how much has been lost and made up, seems like a lot more than a dozen generations. And it sounded to me like the Mincery had kept pretty meticulous records since it got started, being the only group of literate people in England. But I've edited to hedge that claim a little. ←Hob 14:31, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

I think the Mincery count is accurate--the idea of the novel is that something has gone wrong and stalled human development and enough time (thousands of years) has passed that humans SHOULD have begun to have pictures on the wind and boats in the sky again, yet (as Riddley says) they're still diggging in the muck. ←Waxwing slain 12:53, 2005 Mar 27 (UTC)

Well... that's Goodparley's idea, but then again, Goodparley has also confused gunpowder with nuclear fission and has a number of other wrong ideas about the ancient world, and I'm not sure the author means for us to take his judgment literally. Thousands of years did pass between our own Stone Age and Iron Age (the timing varied from one part of the world to another—note that we never hear anything about the world outside Inland); depending on how thoroughly civilization was smashed in Mr. Clevver's war, Riddley's society may be repeating our own timeline pretty closely, as iron smelting and agriculture are just starting to displace hunter-gatherers. In effect, they didn't start over from one A.D., but from several thousand B.C. But I'm sure some of this ambiguity is intentional—after all, the Eusa story gets retold several different ways and a major theme of the novel is the ways in which history and mythology are adapted for different purposes. "We're not as good as those before us" is a fairly timeless refrain. ←Hob 23:02, 2005 Mar 27 (UTC)

We do hear a little bit about the world beyond Inland. Doesn't Riddley find the Yellowstone on the corpse of a courier from the continent washed up on the seashore? The inference is that everything beyond Inland is pretty much the same. Maybe someone should write piece in the Riddley Walker universe dealing with life in Outland. ThePeg 16:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Riddley could tell by his boots that the dead sailor was from "the other side," presumably of the Channel, so there may have been some contact with, and awareness of "foreigners." If memory serves, the Ram propaganda blamed Outland raiders for the demise of the community at Littl Salting. __Just plain Bill (talk) 13:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

---

I removed this paragraph, which was added for some reason under "external links"--

The date of the story is in fact given in chapter 14, when Goodparley tells Riddley that it is now 2347 O.C.(Our Count), a new counting system which began an unspecified "long time" after the Bad Times of the nuclear apocalypse.

--because it isn't true: "2347 O.C." doesn't tell us the date of the story at all, precisely because they started counting after an unspecified long time. But I will fix the phrase "hundreds or even thousands of years" to simply "thousands of years", since it's been at least 2347 years....nah, on second thought there's no proof that they started over at zero. Leaving it as ambiguous as Hoban seems to have intended. ←Hob 07:33, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

I think I rememeber reading somewhere, possibly in the foreword to one of the newer editions that Russell Hoban said his English or specifically his spelling suffered due to writing this book. If this could be confirmed, it should be added to the article IMHO Nil Einne 18:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's either in the foreword or in an interview and I think I can locate it. Thanks for the reminder. ←Hob 01:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Timing

One of the things that always struck me with this book was the timing. It all takes place (from memory) over a couple of days, with Riddley walking all over Kent in a matter of a few hours. Does that ring a bell with anyone else? --Mat Hardy (Affentitten) 05:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Aunty

Death in Norse paganism#Death and eroticism just got mentioned on the Main Page and the first thing that popped to mind was the various stories told in Riddley Walker regarding "doing it with Aunty." Anybody think this deserves mention in the article? __Just plain Bill (talk) 13:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Eusa

Further to the connection between Eusa and the USA: The two are phonologically similar. However, the actual nation-state (here a gestalt together with the scientific establishment) seems to be actually represented by Mr. Clevver, who steals Eusa's (Oppenheim's) knowledge and puts it to use in bombs/'barms'. Riddley watches the two Showmen argue about Eusa's decision to blame himself for the deaths and Bad Times, and whether or not guilt is evidence of responsibility. The trope of scientific progress is invoked: 'someone would've discovered it anyway'.

Eusa could be considered the story of Oppenheim, anonymised and recast in a Promethean, mythic aspect. --86.152.88.234 (talk) 15:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Tidied up a bit

I only meant to change a few words, but I ended up taking huge redundant chunks from part of the article. I think i've managed to cut away quite a lot of chaff, sorry if I stepped on any toes! --90.206.122.212 (talk) 23:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

^^^ This was me, by the way, if anyone wants to offer comment. --Simply swurls (talk) 16:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

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Expanding the article

The core of this article is rather slight, with just over 100 words covering the plot and themes of the novel, and it has not been much worked on of late. Quite a bit of earlier material has been removed as unsourced and suspected WP:OR, but it should be possible to find equivalent sourced material.

At the very least the article could do with a better plot summary, and there really ought to be something about the language, which, after all, has been one of the main focuses of critical appreciation and something many visitors to this page will probably be coming here for. Perhaps some discussion of the main themes and characters, as in earlier versions, would not be out of place, too.

The novel has been the subject of a great deal of critical writing and I have added a list of about 20 articles, which can be drawn on for expansion. Personally, I'd like to see the inline references replaced by shortened footnotes (which make multiple refs to a single source easier and produce a more coherent-looking bibliography), but we'll need to stick with the inline style unless there's a consensus for change (in line with WP:CITEVAR).--Pfold (talk) 22:41, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Science Fiction

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2022 and 8 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Docnewtshrlk (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Wakingtiger (talk) 16:36, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Language and place names decoded

The following counts as Own Research by me, but it can be used as a first stop for further research for those looking for authoritative citations. I remember when the book came out there were several newspaper and magazine articles which clarified a lot of the place names (which are obvious if you have an Ordnance Survey map of the area, anyway). Also, whatever you may read or hear from people unfamiliar with rural Kent in the 1960s/1970s, the language in the novel is clearly based on the old north and east Kent rural dialects which were surviving at that time (though it does include Estuarine, and a slight taste of Cockney rhyming slang here and there). As far as I am aware, the old speakers of that dialect are all now dead. I lived alongside some of them near Canterbury for ten years in the 60s and seventies, and I can still speak it, a little. It had its own lexis, which makes it a true dialect in linguistic terms. A researcher came down from Leeds University in the 60s and recorded some of the east Kent dialect speakers whom I knew well. Those recordings are still in the archives of dialect at one of the departments of Leeds University.

For your information, the following is the list of place names which I decoded, using an OS map, in 1982, with the help of local dialect speakers (farmers who had been there for generations). Obviously you can't move it straight into the article, but it might help you find a citation for some of them if you are googling for that.

• Harts Ease - Harty
• Little Salting - Seasalter
• Widders Bel - Whitstable
• Horny Boy - Herne Bay
• Reakys Over - Reculver
• The Ram - Thanet
• Ram Gut - River Wantsum
• Bollock Stones - Bullockstone
• Dog Et - Dargate
• Fathers Ham - Faversham
• Rivver Sour - River Stour
• Roaming Rune - (Richborough?)
• Sams Itch - Sandwich
• Cambry - Canterbury
• Weaping - Badlesmere (in my notes I had guessed Leaveland, then crossed it out)
• Good Shoar - Deal
• Mole Arse - Molash
• Goodmercy - Godmersham
• How - Wye
• Pig Sweet - Pett Street Farm
• Nelly's Bum, - Nailbourne
• Widders Dump - Withersoane
• Bernt Arse - Ashford
• Brabbas Horn - Brabourne
• Hagmans - (Willesborough?) (Hinkshill has been suggested elsewhere, but the mapping does not fit)
• Sel Out - Sellinge
• Monkeys Whoar Town - Monks Horton Manor
• Dunk Your Arse - Dungeness
• Rose and Power - (Lympne?)
• Cripple the Farn - Capel le Ferne
• The Warnings - Warren
• Fork Stoan - Folkestone
• Do it Over - Dover

There has been a list on Eli Bishop's Riddley Walker Annotations site for many years. --Pfold (talk) 18:29, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree, but the problem is that it is apparently no more backed up by verifiable evidence than is my above list. Also, I don't think that his list is entirely accurate, as I have hinted above. Storye book (talk) 18:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

The point is that from the point of view of this article Eli Bishop is a third-party source, which neither you or I can be. Unless you can quote Hoban himself, you're not going to get anything completely unimpeachable. It's perhaps worth pointing out that Eli had quite a lot of personal contact with Hoban and has compiled a lot of Riddley-related material - he's not just a guy who spent an afternoon compiling a list. Look also at his long list of contributors & collaborators. He's as close to an expert as you're likely to find.

The obvious thing to do is to publish your own list elsewhere online and we can add a link to it. --Pfold (talk) 19:35, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I have no wish to promote myself or my research, or to place myself as an authority, so I will not be putting my research online. Even if I did, I would not expect it to be peer-reviewed. It is just here for reasons explained above, and for anyone who is concerned that Eli Bishop is not peer-reviewed, and appears to have accepted contributions from at least some people he doesn't know, without question.

Also, all of his contributors whose backgrounds are described are in the US or Canada, whereas the novel is set in the UK, in an area which, at the time of writing, still had its own rural dialect (all speakers of that dialect are dead now, as far as I know). The language in the novel is very close to that old north and east Kent dialect, which reflected Old English and Old French syntax and vowels, and retained some lexis from those sources. Thus the language of the book is very easy for me to read (having lived for ten years in the 60s/70s with farmers who spoke the dialect). Most reviewers declare the language to be hard work to understand, which makes me question the authority of those who are unfamiliar with the language and places. Hoban was actually there, and got local help with language and places, as some sources say.

I have no right to declare myself an authority on this, but I do think I can question certain sources which depend on people unfamiliar with what Hoban saw and heard while in Kent. I am of course not arguing for the removal of any sources. However I do think that understanding of the book would be improved if we had more peer-reviewed researchers working locally, who have access to the library of dialect recordings at Leeds University, where examples of the north and east Kent dialect are kept. The recordings were made in the 1960s, and some of the farmers that I knew had contributed to those recordings. (They were proud to have been chosen for the recordings, and used to show off about it in the pub at Marshside). Storye book (talk) 10:39, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I certainly don't wish to suggest that Eli Bishop's list is of free of error or that you have nothing to contribute. However, while his list may not have been peer-reviewed in the strict academic sense, it has been available for scrutiny and updating for many years (at least 15, to my knowledge) and Eli Bishop was certainly in contact with Hoban, though of course I've no idea whether Hoban offered comments. It seems to me your best option is to offer your improvements to Eli Bishop - http://www.errorbar.net/contact.php --Pfold (talk) 11:19, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll think about it. Storye book (talk) 11:43, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Or you could offer your own to list as it stands to http://www.russellhoban.org/ --Pfold (talk) 12:32, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm not really thinking about putting myself out there right now. I just put that above list up there for WP researchers to check out if they wanted to. You never know, in the future there may be citations for it, or citations for something with better ideas. But again, I'll think about it. Anyone is welcome to use the above list and post it where they like, and they can credit me with the 1982 research if they like. You read it here, folks. Storye book (talk) 20:49, 5 December 2022 (UTC)