![]() ![]() It begins with a bow-and-arrow hunt for wild boar, and ends with a routine by Punch and Judy, as puppet shows have taken the place of mass in the churchless - but not godless - England of the distant future. The novel tells the story of the uneasy friendship between two adolescent boys - one a normal teenager, one a clairvoyant mutant - who happen, more or less by accident, on the secret of the atomic bomb. Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban, is set in a post-apocalyptic England in which all but the most basic civilization has decayed. I've never felt it more strongly than when I read the first few sentences of Riddley Walker. ![]() Whatever the explanation, the experience I'm trying to describe - the shock of recognition, of magical identification, - is the single greatest joy that reading gives me. ![]() One of the most enduring mysteries I've encountered, both as a writer and as a reader, is the question of why certain novels speak to me on the most intimate level, while other equally good books fail to cast a spell. John Wray, chosen in 2007 as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists, is the author of three books. ![]()
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