Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Clevverness Counts Agenst

Nowhere in the Book of Genesis is there mention of the creation of the numbers. This is a serious matter. If God didn’t create the numbers, they’ve existed as long as he has. Maybe they are God. Some people say that it was human beings who created the numbers. And that would make human beings God... well sort of.

It’s numbers that makes human beings so clever, you see. “Counting clevverness is what it wer. When they had all them things and marvelsome they cudnt sleap realy they dint have no res. They wer stressing ther self and straining all the time with counting.” It turns out being God (and counting) is a pretty dangerous occupation that can really mess up night and day. Not ‘Fiat Lux,’ Let there be light; but ‘Fiat tenebræ horribiles,’ Let there be terrible darkness.

The numbers are part of the 2nd knowing. But before them was the 1st knowing. The 1st knowing didn’t have counting; so it didn’t breed technology, particularly the technology of domination of the primordial “Addom”. It also pre-dates the splitting of the human psyche into opposing halves - The Littl Shyning Man and Eusa.

The 1st knowing is not individual but social; it exists among people and feels like it comes entirely from elsewhere; it is instinctive and yet alien: “It puts us on like we put on our does. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the arm hoals and it tears us a part.” The 1st knowing has been lost but commemorated in fragmentary myth. Riddley is the potential “connection” to the 1st knowing.

But there are others, the emerging government of the “Mincery” (as in ‘I’m from the Mincery; I’m here to help you’), based in Bernt Arse, a developing industrial centre. The “Pry Mincer” and his henchmen are keen to recover the capabilities of the 2nd knowing, that is, the the knowledge of power and control. They have established a cult of Eusa, as the other half of the alienated Littl Shyning Man.

The cult includes a standard scriptural text required to be memorised by the populace; and a traveling Punch & Judy show as liturgical drama. The cult promotes the idea of a ‘second chance’ for humanity with technology (that is to say, with numbers) through the discovery of the hidden secrets of the 2nd knowing.

Riddley is effectively a heretic and goes on the run. His prophetic revelation is that “EUSAS HEAD IS DREAMING US.” He discovers that the descendants of the Eusa people are living in Cambry, the old cathedral city. There he finds the essence of the 1st knowing: the most powerful are those who do not seek power at all. This is the force which creates us: “It thinks us but it dont think like us.” Numbers are a great temptation to power for people who don't remember this.

In sum: an entertaining but unexpectedly profound investigation of creation and the meaning of being human. It’s not a bad emendation at all to Genesis. And it’s easier to read than Finnegans Wake.

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