Episode 5 – Post-Apocalyptic Walking: Russell Hoban’s Ridley Walker

Kemp, Sam, Newby, Rebecca and Pereira, Jessica (2024) Episode 5 – Post-Apocalyptic Walking: Russell Hoban’s Ridley Walker. [Audio]

Abstract

Join me, Canterbury Tales expert Dr Rebecca Newby, and recent creative writing graduate Jessica Periera as we decipher this classic text and what it can teach us about the tech-focused world of the 2020s. Ridley Walker is a novel set in a post-apocalyptic South East England. It’s written in a dystopian dialect, and explores the customs, rituals and beliefs that have developed since a nuclear war, many of which are based on the interpretations and misinterpretations of the ruins and rumours of our own advanced civilization, in particular, a description of the fifteenth century wall painting The Legend of St Eustace, in Canterbury Cathedral. The story follows a twelve year old Ridley Walker as he inadvertently interferes with the politics and prophecies of the iron-age government and religion. In this world, knowledge is spread in song, parable, and semi-supernatural performances, most notably in the traveling Eusa show, a puppet show performed by the Pry Mincer and Shadow Mincer, Goodparley and Orfing. The show disseminates the story of the time back way back, when civilisation had calculated how to harness the power of nature for good and evil, culminating in the dropping of ‘the 1 big 1’, a nuclear bomb over Canterbury. After Ridley Walker finds a millennia-old figure of Punch buried in the mud, he embarks on a journey which leads him to the ruins of Cambry (Canterbury) and Fork Stoan (Folkestone), and Goodparley’s ill-fated efforts to re-start the quest for the Master Chaynjis; advanced technology, science and explosives. More than anything, it’s a novel about defamiliarisation, scripture, and puppets. It was first published in 1980 and was reprinted as a Penguin Modern Classic in 2021, including some brief notes, an afterword and glossary of ‘RidleySpeak’.

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