Links
On Riddley Walker and Russell Hoban
- 1975 - Russell Hoban (1992)
- An essay by Hoban on how he began the book. DA
- The Terror of History - David Cowart (1989)
- An essay on the treatment of history and myth in RW.
- Dialect, Grapholect, and Story: Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker as Science Fiction
- A scholarly essay by R.D. Mullen, posthumously published in Science Fiction Studies #82 in 2000. This is nominally an argument about whether the novel is a good example of the science fiction genre, and whether Hoban's world-building decisions make sense—but Mullen also discusses the linguistic aspect very thoroughly, breaking down elements of spelling, syntax, etc. in detail. The page also includes responses from other Science Fiction Studies authors with some quibbles about Mullen's analysis. (access to article is limited, may require university account)
- The Language of Riddley Walker (part 1, part 2)
- A pair of blog posts by "AE" analyzing Hoban's choices of spelling, vocabulary, and punctuation in RW. Part 1 is largely an aesthetic argument for why AE dislikes Hoban's choices and wishes the whole book had been written differently, but part 2 eventually takes a more objective approach and breaks down the differences from "Standard English" in linguistic terms ("back vowels", "reduction of posttonic o", etc.).
- "Hoap of a Tree" in Riddley Walker
- Essay by David Huisman, published in Christianity and Literature in 1994. Huisman discusses the role of religion and mythology in RW, their relation to personal morality, parallels to how the early Christian church adapted traditions from the more distant past, and evolving interpretations of the Green Man. (He also unfortunately jumps to some unsupported conclusions about the meaning of certain days and years, but these don't detract from the main points.)
- Riddley Walker Concordance
- A very detailed database for finding words and phrases in several editions of the book.
- The Head of Orpheus and RussellHoban.org
- Comprehensive Hoban reference sites.
Other
- Where London Stood
- A survey of fictional depictions of the ruin of civilization, 18th century to present, by archaeologist David Platt.