Difference between revisions of "Chapter 1"

Revision as of 17:06, 28 July 2013

• (Naming day; a pig and a dog; "Hart of the Wood"; a night with Lorna)
• A hunting expedition coincides with 12-year-old Riddley's initiation into manhood. A traditional story tells us the basics of how the world got the way it is, and we meet Lorna, the village priestess and Riddley's lover.

setting of Chapters 1-9

• dedication: "to Wieland"

Wieland is the youngest of Russell Hoban's children. In a coincidence that is appropriate to this novel, Wieland (Wayland, Weland, Volundr) in Germanic myth was a demigod and master metalworker, who forged the sword of Siegfried.

• Epigram from the Gospel of Thomas. "Jesus has said: Blessed is the lion that the man will devour, and the lion will become man. And loathsome is the man that the lion will devour, and the lion will become man."

One of the most famous sayings from the Gnostic Gospels, expressing a typically paradoxical view of man's higher nature. Several events in this novel invite us to consider the meaning of devouring or being devoured. Lions themselves do not appear in the Anglocentric world of Riddley Walker, but are prominent in Middle Eastern mythology—and also in Russell Hoban's novels, particularly The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz and Pilgermann.

• (1:1) "On my naming day when I come 12"

No dates are explicitly given in the story, but Riddley mentions later that his birthday is "2nd Ful" or the second full moon of the year. Considering the parallels between Riddley's society and ancient Britain, David Cowart speculates that they may date the new year from November as the early Celts did, which would place us near the end of December. BW Riddley mentions later that "Shorsday" (shortest day—the winter solstice, usually around December 21 in the Northern hemisphere) has already come and gone.

• (1:2) "Bundel Downs"

See Places.

• (1:6) "he done the reqwyrt"

Variations on the word "required" will recur throughout the book, usually associated with fate and suffering.

• (1:29) "stumps pink and red ... Aulder trees in there and chard coal berners in amongst them working ther harts. You cud see 1 of them in there with his red jumper what they all ways wear"

The alder tree is traditionally associated with the human body because of its red sap. It burns poorly but is favored for charcoal. Alders figure greatly in the story of Bran.

The existence of a special guild of charcoal burners implies that technical skills are few and far between. Harts in this case means hearths or ovens (charcoal is made by burning wood in a particular way) but, as Riddley explains in the following story, can also mean hearts.

• (2:3) "Making chard coal for the iron reddy at Widders Dump"

Charcoal produces the high temperatures needed for smelting iron. The use of reddy is unclear here (some readers see it as "the iron [that is] ready at Widders Dump") but from later context it seems that the iron reddy is a place where iron is both heated red and made ready—i.e. a forge. (RH concurs: "The iron reddy is a smelter where old iron is melted down to make it ready for new uses.")

Widders Dump: See Places.

• (2:7) "Hart of the Wood"

This is the first of six stories recited in the course of the book.

• (2:8) "Eusa Story"

The Eusa Story is told in Chapter 6.

• (2:17) "Every 1 knows about Bad Time"

Though ominously capitalized phrases have long been a science-fiction/fantasy cliché, Hoban uses them sparingly in this book, and always for mythic or intangible terms.

Note that "everyone knows" not only is a useful device for introducing things that the reader does not know, but also conveys the ritual atmosphere of storytelling in an oral tradition, where familiar characters are often introduced with similar reminders.

• (3:4) ready for Aunty

Aunty's specific attributes will be defined later, but from context she is clearly the angel of death.

• (3:4) "they were ready to total and done"

The first of many of Riddley's slang terms related to computers and other technology.

• (3:28) "They kilt the chyld and drunk its blood and cut up the meat"

Cannibalism is a logical feature of post-disaster life. This image also made its way into another traditional story as we will see in Chapter 14.

• (4:18) "Some times youwl hear of a aulder kincher he carries away childer"

Kincher = cancer? EB Or "older kinship"—in the sense of Riddley's forebears having betrayed/exploited their children. GW Childer is the plural of child in most Scottish and North English dialects. As far as I know, it is not common in Kent or elsewhere in the South. EB

Kincher is also an archaic word for a thief or rogue. RG

• (4:20) "Out goes the candl"

Most of the stories in the book end with a ritual sign-off—a typical storyteller's device in oral traditions. EB

This could also be an allusion to the children's rhyme "Oranges and Lemons": "Here comes a candle to light you to bed; here comes a chopper to chop off your head". Only a paragraph later there is a rhyme with a similar theme of circling and beheading. RG

Among countless other candle-extinguishing references, two from Shakespeare are notable: "The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,/That it's had it head bit off by it young./So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling."—King Lear, I.iv RC; "And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!"—Macbeth, V.v EB.

• (4:27) "dyers on the forms"

The dyers are another technical guild, with an arrangement to supply red-dyed uniforms to the chard coal berners. Forms are farms.

• (4:31) "we put the boars head on the poal"

The first of many heads to appear in this way.

• (5:2) "getting the tel of the head"

Riddley uses tel to mean a divination or prophecy; see connexion man and tel woman. Besides "tell," the word suggests telly or TV (an interpretation that was made literal in the peculiar Hoban homage of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome).

• (5:2) "Fools Circel 9wys"

The map at the beginning of the book shows the place names in this song moving inward in a spiral. See places for more about the significance of each.

Horny Boy rung Widders Bel
Stoal his Fathers Ham as wel
Bernt his Arse and Forkt a Stoan
Done It Over broak a boan
Out of Good Shoar vackt his wayt
Scratcht Sams Itch for No. 8
Gone to senter nex to see
Cambry coming 3 times 3
Sharna pax and get the poal
When the Ardship of Cambry comes out of the hoal

On a map of Kent, the spiral's points are easy to see with their modern names. Horny Boy: Herne Bay. Widders Bel: Whitstable. Fathers Ham: Faversham. Bernt Arse: Ashford. Fork Stoan: Folkestone. Do It Over: Dover. Good Shoar: Deal. Sams Itch: Sandwich. Cambry: Canterbury.

9wys might be pronounced "nine ways" or "ninewise"; there are nine towns mentioned in the rhyme. The spiral from Herne Bay to Canterbury makes the shape of a figure 6, or an inverted 9. It is a counterclockwise spiral; moving counterclockwise (widdershins) has long been thought to have magical significance, and to be unlucky if done around a church.

Vackt his wayt = vack your wayt = evacuate, move on. Sharna pax = sharpen ax (though "pax" is also schoolyard slang for "truce"); poal, a pole which will have someone's head stuck on it.

Ardship of Cambry: Archbishop, or Hardship, of Canterbury.

• (5:13) "the Ardship going roun the circel til it come chopping time. He bustit out after the 3rd chop"

The origin of this game will become clearer in Chapter 11.

• (5:18) "she ben smoaking she wer hy"

Tobacco has not survived in England, but cannabis has.

• (5:31) "then we freshent the Luck"

This phrase for lovemaking conveys the idea of sex as a magical ritual (freshening the luck) but is also a sly bit of Cockney-style rhyming slang (fuck). SLK

The relationship between Lorna and Riddley, like so many things that Riddley takes for granted, is left somewhat unclear. SLK believes that she is not his regular lover, but is initiating him sexually for his coming-of-age day. But there is at least one reference to some longer history between the two, when Goodparley says "manys the time youve rung her bel" (120:18).

SLK further speculates that sexuality in RW may have drifted because of reduced fertility among women—increasing the association between heterosexual sex and Luck, and making homosexuality (or boying) more of a norm among males. One reason Goodparley can't figure out what fidelity means in the Eustace legend is that fidelity, sexual or otherwise, seems a non-starter for Riddley's people.