A favourite book: Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
"You take a figger out of the bag nor it aint nothing only some colourt clof with a paintit wood head and hans. Then you put it on. You put your head finger in the head you put your arm fingers in the arms then that figger looks roun and takes noatis it has things to say. Which they wont all ways be things youwd think of saying o no them wood heads the hart of the wood is in them and the hart of the wud and all. They have ther knowing and they have ther saying which you bes lissen for it you bes let it happen. "I never look for my reveal til its ben." Thats what my dad said time back. My dad the connexion man. In my woal life I've only ever done that 1 connexion which Ive wrote down here I begun with trying to put it to gether poal by poal only my reveal dint come that way it snuck me woaly. I wer keaping that in memberment now. Ready to cry ready to dy ready for any thing is how I come to it now. In fear and tremmering only not running a way. In emtyness and ready to be fult. Not to lern no body nothing I cant even lern my oan self all I can do is try not to get in front of whats coming. Jus try to keap out of the way of it."
I've looked that bit of text over twice, and there's no typos--that's how Hoban wrote it, back in 1980. Have you read this book? If not, I urge you to give it a go. It takes a bit of getting used to as Hoban imagined a language and wrote it as such--it's what English might sound like in England, near Canterbury, after a nuclear holocaust in which all written language (and most of culture and civilization too) have been wiped out. What would endure in us? This is Hoban's question as he writes this most astonishing of novels. He grapples with the biggies: the nature of evil, of art, of myth... I won't waste prose time trying to describe it...Anthony Burgess said it better in his review of the book: "THIS IS WHAT LITERATURE IS MEANT TO BE: EXPLORAATION WITHOUT FEAR."
When I was taking his poetry seminar way back when, William Meredith came across this book (it had just been published), bought ten hardback copies and handed them out to us, his students. We spent a few weeks on it. I still have Meredith's mimeographed notes to us Yanks, e.g.
p.45 "bloaks"-"blokes": English for "guys"
p. 54 "pist"-"getting pissed" means getting drunk, not angry, in England
p. 185 "wanking" - an English obscenity; something along the lines of masturbating.
I've looked that bit of text over twice, and there's no typos--that's how Hoban wrote it, back in 1980. Have you read this book? If not, I urge you to give it a go. It takes a bit of getting used to as Hoban imagined a language and wrote it as such--it's what English might sound like in England, near Canterbury, after a nuclear holocaust in which all written language (and most of culture and civilization too) have been wiped out. What would endure in us? This is Hoban's question as he writes this most astonishing of novels. He grapples with the biggies: the nature of evil, of art, of myth... I won't waste prose time trying to describe it...Anthony Burgess said it better in his review of the book: "THIS IS WHAT LITERATURE IS MEANT TO BE: EXPLORAATION WITHOUT FEAR."
When I was taking his poetry seminar way back when, William Meredith came across this book (it had just been published), bought ten hardback copies and handed them out to us, his students. We spent a few weeks on it. I still have Meredith's mimeographed notes to us Yanks, e.g.
p.45 "bloaks"-"blokes": English for "guys"
p. 54 "pist"-"getting pissed" means getting drunk, not angry, in England
p. 185 "wanking" - an English obscenity; something along the lines of masturbating.
posted by Alice Lyons at 10:34 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home