I highly recommend those unfamiliar to give Neil Gaiman’s Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch a look-see first. (Despite its unoriginality, that ranks among my favorite passages from any novel. For the central conflict, we even get a full performance of Punch & Judy mythologized for the people of the Inland. At times, the creepy rebelliousness of Mr Punch is literally channeled through Riddley, who carries a pre-war, rotten Punch doll as a charm. Punch & Judy pop up with significant influence throughout the book. The memorized text he uses for his work reflects modern religions: Its teachings were written long after the existence of Eusa, but centuries before Riddley Walker recites them, and the language itself is slightly less corrupted compared to the language the current Inlanders speak. Riddley, as part of his connexion duties, has one version of Eusa’s Story and its core teachings memorized. Like many religious followers, the Eusa folk carry the suffering of Eusa in both physical and psychological mutations - their emotions form a telepathic connection between one another, and often packs of wild dogs. His guilt is a guilt of a society driven by knowledge and power to be self-destructive, and it’s a guilt carried by the Eusa folk of Riddley’s time. His head is spoken of as still speaking law at the mysterious island of Ram, where the ruling elite presumably live and dole out the Mincery’s law through puppet theater. He was, once upon a time, a religious martyr responsible for the 1 Big 1 - tricked by the devil (‘Mr Clevver’) into splitting the atom (‘Little Shynin Man the Addom’) and causing the final holocaust. Riddley Walker is set in a post-apocalyptic vision of England’s present-day Kent.Įusa’s dynamic teachings are the foundation for moral authority across the Inland (present-day Kent). Eustace,’ taken from the Cambry (‘Canterbury’) cathedral).
In a dead world with no electricity, communications, methods of transportation, science, literature, &c., he’s trained to translate the Mincery’s (‘Ministry’) puppet renditions of Punch & Pooty (‘Judy’) shows and the teachings of Eusa (‘St. His short-lived role of connexion man ties him as a go-between to the ruling elite of the local Inland and Eusa folk. Riddley Walker‘s is a text written by its eponymous connexion man after his naming day (i.e., 12th birthday), which means the text is written in a form of English quite transformed from our own.
Some 2347 years, give or take, after a nuclear holocaust has wiped out our present civilization, the world’s been stagnating in its earliest stages. Every sentence and every word stuck to me, and I couldn’t help but want to get lost in the corrupted language.
Reading Riddley Walker has been one of the most profound and moving experiences I’ve ever had with literature.
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