Riddley Walker

Riddley Walker

Rating

7.5

The Pequod Review:

Set in England several years after a nuclear holocaust, Riddley Walker is told in a highly broken form of English. Here the protagonist describes the effect of the atomic bomb (“1 Big 1”):

Eusa put the 1 Big 1 in barms then him & Mr Clevver droppit so much barms thay kilt as menne uv thear oan as they kilt enemes. Thay wun the Warr but the lan wuz poyzen from it and the ayr & water as wel.

The book is not necessary an enjoyable reading experience, but it is enormously inventive with a childlike prose that matches the retrograde state of the post-apocalyptic human species.