Riddley Walker
Russell Hoban
22 people recommended it in 5 threads, 2013–2025.
1 commenter pushed back on it — worth reading the threads.
What people on Hacker News said
Post apocalyptic novel written in a made up language (think Clockwork Orange). Poetic and deeply moving account of a boy's journey through a world where scientific knowledge has devolved to primitive ritual and incantation; and his dawning realisation that we lost everything.
Riddley Walker is a stunningly good novel. I've read it twice and I'd read it again. Many years ago there was a dramatisation of it at the Edinburgh Festival, very powerful. One bit that sticks in my memory is when Riddley stumbles on the overgrown ruins of what must be the M25 motorway that encircled London. And he cries: "O what we ben wonce! And what we come to now!"
On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly.
Yes, exactly! That's my favourite part, his realisation of the magnitude of the loss, it's completely devastating.
If one gets into the books that invent their own dialect, the most dense I found was "Riddley Walker" by Hoban Russel. As a non native English reader it was very difficult to make progress, but once the understanding settles in, it's a pretty nice story.
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