paperpools

Patrick Jehle has a post on Riddley Walker on Night Hauling. Of the 25 voters in the Paperpools Riddley Walker poll, 13 think it's a masterpiece of 20th century fiction, 3 have heard of it but never read it and 9 have never heard of it.

This is, of course, a ludicrously small sample, but the pattern is what I would expect to find for an unjustly neglected work of genius (if a similar poll were run for Ulysses, even one vote in 'never heard of it' would be astounding, though it would not be surprising to get many votes in 'heard of but not read' ). More Riddley:

Befor I write down that 1st connexion I bes say a word or 2 about connexions and I myt as wel tel Truth. When my dad ben a live I all ways thot I cud do better connexions nor him when my chance come. How he don it he wud mummel slow and quyet and start and stop with long sylents be twean and mosly his connexions wernt nothing as citing. Every body liket them tho. They all ways went strait to the hart of the matter plus they wer jus that littl bit else nor mos peopl wuntve thot of it qwite the same way.

Like the time wen I ben 7 or 8 when Littl Salting Fents got largent in by Dog Et Form. That ben up on Top Shoar and we ben down by Fork Stoan then in Crippel the Farn Fents. Every body heard of it tho and talking on it. Dog Et tol some cow shit story of a Outland raid from over water they said thats how Littl Salting got ther Big Man kilt plus 8 mor dead and the res of the crowd sparsit out to who ever wud take them in...in that woal story Dog Et tol ther bint a word of Truth only how many dead. Every body knowit Dog Et said, 'Les largen in to gether' and Littl Salting said 'No' which then it wer arga warga for them.

Wel the Pry Mincer and the Wes Mincer don 1 of ther specials dint they. Coarse they don. My dad tol me that show over when he ben learning me. I myt as wel tel it here then when I write down the connexion for it thatwl show his styl.

There has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about underrated books, but no one is talking about Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker. How it works: A puts up a post. Readers send comments. If one mentions a book it has had its 2 seconds of fame: other readers think they must come up with a different book.

Meanwhile Blogger has introduced a poll widget. When I mention Riddley Walker in conversation people who've read it say YES, it's a work of GENIUS -- but most people haven't heard of it. That said, I don't tend to go about dragging Riddley Walker into the conversaton. This is what polls are for. So I have put one in the sidebar.

Riddley Walker takes place in a landmass that had been Britain before a nuclear holocaust. Scientific knowledge has been lost, but traces of it survive in the language as mythological explanations for what now makes no sense ('the party cools of Addom and the many cools of stoan'). It begins like this:

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we wer then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, 'Your tern now my tern later.' The other spears gone in then and he wer dead and the steam coming up off him in the rain and we all yelt, 'Offert!'