Russell Hoban (1925–2011)

Wow, this is quite a book. Ridley Walker, the narrator of the story, is a 12 year old living in a post-apocalyptic East England. His language is a heavily distorted, and simplified, English (making some parts tricky to decipher), reflecting the essentially medieval society he lives in, 2000 years after The Bad Time.

Just about all knowledge from our time has been lost, but there are fragments of it echoed in nursery rhymes and folk tales that recur throughout the novel. Just as Riddley's language is a distorted echo of our English, with faux-amis-like homonyms revealing unintended meanings, the nursery rhymes and folk tales contain kernels of forgotten knowledge from the time before the apocalypse. This is done exceptionally well - while part of the fun of the book is trying to spot the origins of these folk stories, they are not the clumsy, direct allegories one might expect, but have the real ring of organic myth.

It is interesting that the society seems restrained by their knowledge of the pre-apocalyptic world. If they were starting from scratch you feel they'd make greater progress. As it is, they are trying to recreate what they knew we have without the necessary foundations, and so seem doomed to stagger around in fruitless circles (like an emergent religion based on fossilised world models, à la J. G. Frazer's The Golden Bough).

This, along with the depravation and sheer grimness of Riddley's world, and the inevitable power struggles and cruelty make the book a somewhat depressing, harrowing read with an underlying despair at the human condition. But then there are also definitely kernels of optimism, partly from the eponymous character's resilience, but also from the creativity evinced by their new myths and the emergent culture that comes from it.

Riddley Walker is a great book - linguistically rich and challenging, with a well-constructed future-primitive world with a convincing culture. Not always easy, but it grabbed me and kept me reading - even if, sometimes, only a couple of pages at a time. And as soon as I finished I wanted to go back and re-read sections of it - as well as look up other people's thoughts about the book (I haven't done that yet). There are so many characters, phrases and incidents which have firmly lodged themselves in my subconscious that Riddley Walker will stay with me for quite a while.
… (mer)

Considering that the story is about the misadventures of a clockwork father mouse and child, and their encounters with various talking birds/animals, this is actually quite a dark tale and not at all twee. Instead, violence, death and squalor are evident in abundance, with a wry black comedy setting, such as the alternative society developed by rats in the dump, and the avant garde travelling player company run by crows. Similarly, a dog food label provides the philosophical linking theme, as the Last Visible Dog becomes the symbol for eternity.

A book that works on a number of levels, and I would've rated it more highly, only for me, it loses momentum once the eponymous characters start to achieve their goal of being reunited with the clockwork elephant and seal from the toyshop where they all began, and acquiring the dollhouse from there.… (mer)

The classic funny story about a stubborn little badger with very particular tastes in food.

Frances is a fussy eater. In fact, the only thing she likes is bread and jam. She won't touch her squishy soft-boiled egg. She trades away her chicken-salad sandwich at lunch. She turns up her nose at boring veal cutlets.

Unless her parents can come up with a plan, Frances just might go on eating bread and jam forever!

Join the generations of families that have laughed along as Frances sings "Jam on biscuits, jam on bread, Jam is the thing I like most, Jam is sticky, jam is sweet, Jam is tasty, jam's a treat--raspberry, strawberry, gooseberry, I'm very FOND...OF...JAM!"… (mer)