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=//Riddley Walker//, the Environment, and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction=

Russell Hoban’s //Riddley Walker// is set around 2500 years after a nuclear war destroyed most of humanity. If follows the young Riddley Walker as he travels across Kent County of England (known as “Inland” in Riddley’s time). //Riddley Walker// is a post-apocalyptic novel, showing humans struggling to survive after a catastrophic event. Due to the setting a world destroyed by man, post-apocalyptic novels tend to have environmentalist messages, and //Riddley Walker// is no exception. //Riddley Walker,// like many post-apocalyptic novels, shows that even after the destruction of the world, hope can be found.

The people of Riddley’s time see the nuclear war with almost religious importance. The //Eusa Story// is a combination of the //Legend of St. Eustace// and a retelling of the nuclear war. Not only does it tell how the world was destroyed, it is also, in a way, a creation story. It tells how Riddley’s world came to be. It tells how Eusa created the ‘1 Big 1’ (a nuclear bomb) and brought the ‘Bad Tym.’ During the Bad Time, the earth was burnt and desolate; “Evere thing was blak & rottin. Ded peapl & pigs eatin then & thay pigs dyd. Dog paks after peapl & peapl after dogs tu eat thrn the sayn. Smoak goin up frum bernin evere wayr.” (pg 33) People struggled to survive in the smoldering ruins of a once great planet. By Riddley’s time, the world had recovered. Most of Inland is covered in forests, humans are farming the earth and herding livestock again, but there is still danger. Packs of wild dogs lurk in the wilderness, and being eaten by a dog is a common way to die. People live in fenced villages to protect themselves from the outside world. Society has returned to the Iron Age, but instead of mining they get iron from ancient machines. Despite burning the planet to a crisp, humans and the environment managed to recover.

With this recovery, history seems to be repeating itself. Before Riddley receives his scar to become a connexion man, he has a short exchange with Goodparley. After Goodparley tells Riddley that his people can’t have all of Inland as forage ground, Riddley responds “Looks like we cant have none of it. Them forms ben largening in our forage groun and sqweazin us out littl by little…” (pg 39). Riddley’s people are foragers, hunting and gathering food, but farmers and herders are moving into foraging grounds. Hoban uses a play on words with ‘former’. Not only is it a corruption the word ‘farmer,’ but it can be taken literally; ‘Formers’ literally form the landscape by clearing forests and planting crops. Agriculture is often seen as one of the most important developments in human history. Environmental historians argue that the Agricultural Revolution 12,000 to 11,000 years ago was the moment humans gained control of their environment. In his book, //Plagues, Plows, and Petroleum//, William F. Ruddiman states that “… farming is not nature, but rather the largest alteration of Earth’s surface from its natural state that humans have yet achieved.” I think it could be argued that farming is even more unnatural than a nuclear holocaust. A natural mirror of an atomic bomb could be a meteor impact or a large volcanic eruption, but there is no natural mirror for large-scale agriculture.

Riddley is clearly uncomfortable with the expanding farmlands, seeing them as a threat to his peoples’ livelihood. He asked Goodparley “…whynt you jus finish the job and be done with it. If our times pas whynt you jus wipe us out all to gether?” Goodparley and the Mincery see foragers as ‘primitives’ that should make way for a new way of living, a way of living disconnected from nature. In the Mincery’s way of living, humans control nature. The conflict between Riddley and the Mincery is a conflict of power and control. The Mincery idealize the ‘Clevver Time’ and want to return to having boats in the air and pictures on the wind. The Mincery strives for power and control over nature. Riddley, on the other hand, is more at one with nature. After he finds the Mr. Punch Puppet and flees Widder’s Dump, the Bert Arse dog pack takes him in. While the dogs would eat most people, Riddley is ‘dog frendy.’ Riddley’s people see this as an ominous thing, but it could be seen as a deep connection to nature. This idea of a connection to nature is built upon when he finds Greanvine. When Riddley finds Goodparley’s face depicted as a Green Man, he has a vision where the head tells him “lose it… let go… the onlyes power is no power.” (pg 167) Riddley is deeply affected by this vision. He continues to think about it through the novel, and eventually comes to the conclusion that “It aint that its //no// Power. It’s the not sturgling for Power that’s where the Power is. Its in jus letting yourself be where it is.” (pg 197) He decides that power comes from being where power is. This directly conflicts with the Mincery who struggle for power in form of making the ‘1 Littl 1.’ This struggle eventually, literally, blew up in their face.

When Riddley receives that message ‘the onlyes power is no power,’ he receives another: ‘hoap in a tree.’ Hope is a major theme of Hoban’s novel. Riddley is a first confused by the statement, but as his adventure continues, he begins to understand it. During his last trip to Cambry he takes note of the Barrens that surround it. The Barrens are a desolate wasteland surrounding Cambry, a dusty scar reminding the world of the nuclear war. After Riddley meets Orfing, Orfing asks ‘Riddley dyou think theres hoap of any thing?’ to which Riddley responds ‘Theres new earf on the barrens all the time.’ (pg 198) Despite the hopeless image of the Barrens, new life returns to it every day. There is hope in a tree.

Hoban’s novel carries a very poignant message. It was written in the ‘80s, during the Cold War and nuclear war was a very real fear. The message remains important today. We live on a fragile planet, one that we can easily break. Post-apocalyptic fiction paints a dark picture of the future. In this darkness there is a light, though. Hoban shows that even in a dark future there is hope for a better tomorrow. With growing awareness of environmental damage and Earth’s limited resources, this glimmer of hope is important.

Sources:

Cowart, David. "The Terror of History: Riddley Walker." The Terror of History: Riddley Walker. Web. <[]>.

Hoban, Russel. //Riddley Walker//. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. Print

McMarthy, Cormac. //The Road//. New York: Vintage International, 2006. Print.

Ruddiman, William F. //Plows, Plagues, and Petroluem//. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005 Print

"World Tree." //Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. //Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. <[]>.

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