Russell Hoban links

Article in the Times Literary Supplement by novelist Margaret Drabble celebrating Russell Hoban's novels as they re-emerge in Penguin. Article is behind the TLS paywall.

Exhibition of works by British-born visual artist at VisArts centre in Maryland, USA, takes its title from Hoban's Riddley Walker. See also this short review of the show in the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/art-gallery-shows-dc-region/2021/02/17/d16fc7ee-6fb5-11eb-b8a9-b9467510f0fe_story.html

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams writes an opinion piece for the New York Times considering the current state of the world in light of power and its meaning in Riddley Walker: "Unless we reimagine the power we seek for ourselves in terms of solidarity and compassion, our future will be the wasteland of Russell Hoban’s fantasy." Several references and direct quotes are made from the novel.

Novelist Helen DeWitt describes Riddley Walker as the "underrated equal of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land" in this brief list of favourite books.

News story reporting that Sam Meech's Riddley Walker-inspired exhibition Time Back Way Back, originally shown in Barrow-in-Furness, has moved to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester, under the name Girt Shyning Weals: Riddley Walker and Anthony Burgess.

Appreciation of Russell Hoban and the SA4QE fan event by Nick Campbell from the We Are Cult blog.

Fascinating story of how a "dilapidated, yet rare, Beetle Cat" found its way into a boatbuilding & restoration programme at the IYRS School of Technology & Trades, and was later found to originally belong to Russell Hoban. The IYRS got in touch with the russellhoban.org website, who put them in touch with Hoban's family, who went on to send details about their memories of sailing in the boat with their father. Blog post includes a painting by Russell Hoban from the time the family spent sailing the vessel from the Southern Connecticut shoreline. See also "In Defense of Buying Boats", an article by Hoban for Sports Illustrated from this period.

Yvonne Studer writes: "In case anyone has ever wondered what Knock John Tower from Linger Awhile might have looked like (i.e. the place occupied by radio pirates in the 1960s, among them Irving Goodman’s later wife Charlotte Burton), here’s a link to the Project Redsand, a project to restore the old forts built during World War II in the Thames Estuary."

Interview with actress Julianne Moore, to which she showed up clutching a copy of Russell Hoban's classic novel Turtle Diary. No details sadly of whether this would indicate that Moore is set to play Naeara in a new Hollywood blockbuster version...

Article by Johnny Herbert on the Kunstforum website tackling the exhibits and ideas in "The Noing Uv It", an exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall partly inspired by Riddley Walker, whose aim is to "invite us to think about objects".

Robert Freeman contributes this piece about The Mouse and His Child to the Guardian's "Families in literature" series, emphasising the importance of family in the book.

In 2013, writer and journalist Paul Cooper was given the enviable task of cataloguing Russell Hoban's manuscripts. In this fascinating article written especially for russellhoban.org, he recalls some of his discoveries.

Lindsay Edmunds writes in the Huffington Post about the 2013 reissue of Russell Hoban's classic novel Turtle Diary.

Tamsin Oglesby, the playwright behind the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2012 stage adaptation of Russell Hoban's The Mouse and His Child, explains its enduring appeal and the themes and characters which inspired her.

Birmingham-based theatre company Stan's Cafe comment on why they revived Russell Hoban's 1984 play The Carrier Frequency.

Ghislaine Kenyon, Head of Learning at Somerset House, writes on her experience of Russell Hoban as a lecturer on art.

Review from Frieze magazine of the 2005 fan convention held in London. Link fixed 25/7/17

As part of the Guardian's "desk therapist" series Donna Dawson describes the "organised chaos" of Russell Hoban's workroom. With brief commentary by RH.

Link to all articles on the online version of Granta magazine by Russell Hoban. Subscribers only. Most pieces were later collected in The Moment under The Moment (1992); we have not been able to verify whether the Granta pieces differ from the Moment versions. Titles: Footplacers, London Transport Owls, Wincer-Boise; Mnemosyne, Teen Taals, and Tottenham Court Road; Fragments of a Lament for Thelonious Monk; Pan Lives; One Less Octopus at Paxos; A Conversation With The Head of Orpheus; The Boat Train (appears to be an extract or early draft of a chapter from The Medusa Frequency); The Man with the Dagger; The Devil’s Kitchen. Also an extract (likely chapter 1) from Riddley Walker.

A transcription of a talk by Russell Hoban given to the 1970 Exeter conference on children's literature, published in the journal "Children's Literature in Education" (March 1971, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp 5-23). The first two pages are available free via the link; payment or an existing subscription is required to read the full article. Includes extracts from the incomplete/unpublished sequel to The Mouse and His Child, "The Return of Manny Rat". Some elements of the article are reminiscent of those from essays in "The Moment under The Moment". Hoban prefaces this piece "This article is dedicated to my friend, Harvey Cushman, who died in London in 1966."

Brief word-sketches from 1957 issue of Sports Illustrated. May have accompanied an original drawing or painting, which are not included.

Short article dated November 12, 1956 for Sports Illustrated accompanying some illustrations Russell Hoban did for the same issue (unfortunately not included) of Toronto Maple Leafs hockey players. (Link fixed 28/6/14)

Long, evocative article by Russell Hoban for Sports Illustrated dated January 19, 1959, about the joys of boating. "A man in a boat regains his sense of scale, knows how big the sea is, and he remembers who and what he is. In a boat, we become whole again, and the flying fragments of our lives that whirl about us daily become concentrated in us." See also: http://russellhoban.org/link/story-and-history-of-beetle-cat-sail-0

Short piece by Russell Hoban published in the New York Times, 23 November 1981, on the noises and "creatures" of the London Underground. This was later published as "Footplacers, London Transport Owls, Wincer-Boise" collected (and dated 1982) in "The Moment under The Moment" (pub. 1992). Dave Awl remarks: "It was apparently published in the NY Times in the fall of 1981. (Curious, because the acknowledgments in The Moment Under the Moment mention it being published in Granta but not the NY Times. Maybe Granta came first, but then it's odd that the Times doesn't acknowledge Granta.) It also looks like it ran with an illustration originally, which didn't get included when the archives were put online. (There's a notation at the end that says 'Illustrations: drawing'.) Too bad!"

To celebrate its 21st anniversary in 1992, the British publisher Picador invited 21 of its best authors to write about one of the years from 1972 to 1992, from their own perspective. Each piece was written especially for the collection, which includes essays by, among others, Tariq Ali, Julian Barnes, Clive James, Tama Janowitz, Ian McEwan, David Profumo and Russell Hoban. Choosing the year 1975, he contributed this, along with a drawing of Punch (not included), made while he was working on Riddley Walker.

Russell Hoban pays homage to Gislebertus, the 12th-century stone-carver whose work at Autun Cathedral in France inspired a section of The Bat Tattoo.

Una McCormack and Max Porter have an animated discussion about Riddley Walker in front of the festival audience with Backlisted podcast hosts John Mitchinson and Andy Miller, August 2019. Includes some excellent readings by the panel as well as audio clips of Russell Hoban reading from the novel and commenting on it and his writing process.

Author Neil Gaiman presents a short programme on BBC Radio 4, first broadcast 22nd September 2015, about the Orpheus and Eurydice myth and its retelling by contemporary writers including himself, Margaret Atwood and Russell Hoban. Hoban is interviewed briefly about "lostness"; Gaiman reads an extract from The Medusa Frequency. Hoban's daughter Phoebe also contributes briefly about her father's "shamanic" creative methods. The BBC iPlayer link is only available temporarily and will only work in the UK and some other European countries.

1983 interview by Edward Blishen about Russell Hoban's then-new novel Pilgermann. From the ICA Talks series, hosted on the British Library website.

Short review by Philip S Turner of the Russell Hoban tribute event at McNally Jackson Books, New York, on 8th July 2013.

Writer Meg Sanders writes about how she discovered The Mouse and His Child, and looks at some of its themes and influences.

An account of visiting Waterford, Ireland for Red Kettle's November 2007 theatrical production of Riddley Walker.

Account of the evening at the Guardian event in London, from the SA4QE website. Mostly about Riddley Walker.

Chris Bell looks at a fascinating but under-appreciated period in Russell Hoban's life when he worked as a commercial illustrator, producing portraits for Time magazine and plates for books including The Tales of Edgar Allen Poe.

Chris Bell discusses Russell Hoban's 1983 novel Pilgermann, finding it "the closest I’ve experienced to a life-changing novel so far."

Chris Bell considers an under-appreciated period in Russell Hoban's life and career - that of professional painter and illustrator. Contains several examples of his work.

The magic of the puppet show, says Professor K.A. Laity, is its ability to transform the inanimate into animation, to turn movement into story, and to bring to life all manner of dreams and stories. Originally published in Puppetry International Magazine 19 (2006).

This extract on Google Books from Daniel Noel's 2004 collection "In a Wayward Mood" appears to include his entire 23-page essay on Hoban. Noel's paper starts with Riddley Walker and goes on to explore related themes in Pilgermann and The Medusa Frequency. Also touches on Kleinzeit and Turtle Diary.

Excerpt (pages 83-105, 220-21) from David Cowart, History and the Contemporary Novel (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989). Copyright 1989 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University. Reprinted at The Head of Orpheus by permission of the publisher.

A searchable "key words in context" concordance of Russell Hoban's 1987 novel The Medusa Frequency.

Documents a fan event whereby favourite Russell Hoban quotations are left in public places.

Pins curated by Dave Awl

Over the years, for his contribution to the annual SA4QE event, longtime fan Olaf Schneider has created multimedia Flash animations inspired by quotations from Russell Hoban's books. Impressionistic, atmospheric and surreal, the (so far) 27 animations range from a moving Belhousov-Zhabotinsky reaction on the cover of Fremder to a haunting recording of Russell Hoban reciting his poem The Dream of The Kraken.

Facebook page for the SA4QE activity.

Russell Hoban's 1960 portrait of Montreal Canadiens' hockey hero Maurice Richard for Sports Illustrated magazine. This is also referred to in Chris Bell's essay "Russell Hoban the Illustrator" at http://russellhoban.org/essay/russell-hoban-the-illustrator A few years earlier Hoban had written about sketching other hockey players for Sports Illustrated at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1131440/index.htm

Short but essential 1981 "People" magazine interview with Russell Hoban between the release of Riddley Walker and Pilgermann. Link fixed 22/8/17.

Interview from Stride magazine no. 26, 1986, in which Russell Hoban talks about the recent Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester production of Riddley Walker, and other topics.

Extensive interview about several books. The link supplied is to the Google Books partial online version originally published by Methuen, 1985. Click on the "Russell Hoban" link off the contents page.

2010 interview mainly about Riddley Walker but touching on other books and the creative process.

Jim Poyser's short but profound 1998 interview with Russell Hoban on the subject of strangeness, on the occasion of the issue of the Expanded Edition of Riddley Walker. Also contains a review of the latter. Originally published in The Bloomington Voice and NUVO Newsweekly. Selected by Poyser in 2015 as one of his career highlights, he says (at http://www.nuvo.net/GuestVoices/archives/2015/03/27/nuvo-at-25-poyser) the interview was the most popular story he ever published in NUVO.

Short interview to promote Come Dance With Me. Quote: "It has been my aim to be as strange as I can be, and I've never been as strange as I'd like to be."

UPDATE 1/2/22: The British Library have put up an audio recording of Will Self's full conversation with Russell Hoban about Riddley Walker at https://www.bl.uk/british-library-player/videos/russell-hoban-in-conversation-with-will-self The original link here to the SA4QE site is a personal account and partial transcript of the conversation.

Account and transcript of Hans Ulrich Obrist's interview with Russell Hoban.

Colin Midson of Bloomsbury Publishing talks to Russell Hoban about his then-new novel The Bat Tattoo, as well as Riddley Walker, his love of film and his writing methods.

SF writer Paul Kincaid pays tribute to Russell Hoban

Comprehensive overview of Russell Hoban's life by Todd VanDerWerff.

Novelist Will Self reflects on Russell Hoban's influence on him and remembers their conversation event at the British Library in 2011.

Brief news story on BBC website.

Brief tribute to Russell Hoban from a magazine which ran an interview with the author in 2011.

Touching summary of Russell Hoban's life and work.

A 2015 blog post on Riddleyspeak aka the language of Riddley Walker, more sophisticated than most in its linguistic analysis.

Benet Vincent, posting in 2020 on the Coventry University Ponying the Slovos blog which looks at fictional dialects in translation, critiques various writers' and academics' previous essays on the language of Riddley Walker.

2-minute video of an audio recording of the late novelist and polymath Anthony Burgess talking about his admiration for Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker, and how he felt Hoban's novel would have been a worthier winner of the 1980 Booker Prize (won by William Golding).

IMDb page on the film version of Russell Hoban's 1975 novel, directed by John Irvin, with screenplay by Harold Pinter, starring Glenda Jackson, Ben Kingsley and Michael Gambon.

Reviews, interviews and other articles from the Guardian website tagged or mentioning Russell Hoban and/or his books.

Summary of John Mullan's interview with Russell Hoban on 29 November 2010. Includes link to audio recording of the interview.

John Mullan introduces Riddley Walker as the Guardian's book club title, summarising the language and some of the themes of the novel.

A full list (PDF) of all the manuscripts of children's books and novels, plus diaries, correspondence and notebooks, acquired by the Beinecke Library in 2017 from Russell Hoban's family. The list describes over 80 boxes of papers including various drafts of classic works such as Riddley Walker, The Mouse and His Child and The Medusa Frequency, as well as a number of curios including an invitation to the White House and correspondence with Harold Pinter. The actual list of items can be explored online at https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/resources/5739 via the sidebar.

Fascinating and comprehensive resource site annotating Russell Hoban's classic 1980 novel Riddley Walker, providing notes on the novel's many themes, motifs and characters. An essential guide to the novel whether you're reading it for pleasure or study.

Marco Roth in the London Review of Books 27/1/2022 reviews some of the new Penguin Classis editions including Riddley Walker, Turtle Diary and The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz.

Rupert Loydell revisits Russell Hoban's first eight novels as reissued in spring 2021 with new Eduardo Paolozzi covers in the Penguin Modern Classics imprint; also touches on his later books.

Children's author and university creative writing teacher Philip Womack names The Mouse and His Child no. 25 in his list of the 30 all-time best books for children: "A bittersweet and unusual tale, in which a clockwork mouse and his child are thrown out of a toy shop, and then must embark on a journey to find safety. Unlike the film Toy Story, in which the toys are complicit in their servitude, this allows discarded toys to find a world of their own, constructed according to their own terms. Full of striking imagery and exciting scenes." (The Independent, 14/10/18) HT: Alida Allison.

1986 New York Times review by Vincent Canby of the film of Turtle Diary, whose screenplay was written by Harold Pinter.

Short piece in the UK Independent by Mick Jackson: "Hoban's book is a work of such colossal and devastating invention it makes other novels look weedy by comparison."

The Atlantic monthly magazine from August 1976 reviews Turtle Diary (1975) in the context of Russell Hoban's then higher profile as a writer of books for children, paying particular attention to Charlie the Tramp and Bread and Jam for Frances. Thanks to Janis Winn for the scan.

The Stratford Observer favourably reviews the RSC's production of The Mouse and His Child.

Brief clip taken from a 1987 TV documentary "As Pleased as Punch" celebrating Mr Punch's "325th anniversary". Hoban is filmed in his home study at his desk with Punch & Judy puppets and Apple II computer and summarises the meaning of Punch in the novel.

Short, undated video (2010s?) in which Sir Quentin Blake talks about his first collaboration with Russell Hoban on "How Tom Beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen" and its sequel, "A Near Thing for Captain Najork".

Full version of The Mouse and His Child 1977 animated film based on the 1967 Russell Hoban novel by the same name. Voice actors include Peter Ustinov, Cloris Leachman, Sally Kellerman, Andy Devine, Alan Barzman, and Marcy Swenson as the Child. Directed by Charles Swenson & Fred Wolf.

Complete film of Harold Pinter's 1985 adaptation starring Ben Kingsley, Glenda Jackson and Michael Gambon.

Russell Hoban talks to a large audience at San Diego University (SDSU) in October 1990 about his "children's writing" (which he says is all part of his "one writing"). He also reads from various children's books including Ponders, as well as an unpublished draft of The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz. This video cuts off due to YouTube's time limits and continues at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwKAmX5vzG4 For full background info on these videos please see http://www.russellhoban.org/link/russell-hoban-at-the-san-diego-state-university-october-17-1990-part-1

Amazing video of Russell Hoban giving a lecture on his writing and working processes in 1990. From Alida Allison, Professor, San Diego State University (SDSU): "In 1990, Russell Hoban did a 10-day reading tour of Southern California that began at SDSU, continued to UC Riverside, California State University Long Beach (where he saw its Drama Department's production of Riddley Walker), and ended at UCLA. Russ spoke twice at SDSU. First was October 17, covering primarily his books for adults, especially Riddley Walker. The video linked here is the first part of that lecture. Second was the next day and covered his children's books. For this, the 600-seat Don Powell Theater was standing room only and the audience very receptive. Russ, too, enjoyed his two-plus hours. Hoban's unique mind, language, range, depth, and humor come to life as he reads from his books, comments on them, relays anecdotes and writer's secrets, and brings out props he carried all the way from London. Thanks to the efforts of The Kraken and russellhoban.org these precious talks are available. Regrettably, the quality was not professional in the first place and this is the best we have. Will improve when/if possible." Our thanks to Professor Allison for allowing the upload of this video to YouTube and to Olaf Schneider for the uploading. Thanks also to Dr Yvonne Studer for her help with the videos.

Paul Hunter, director of The Mouse and His Child at the Royal Shakespeare Company, talks about the influence of Toy Story and Pixar and the importance of capturing all the emotions of Hoban's book, and adds "This is a play for everyone."

Short clip from the Roland Collection video interview.

A video posted by the Trouble Puppet theatre company on YouTube showing their approach to staging a puppet version of Riddley Walker. They establish the principal characters in "bunraku" style -- manipulated directly by visible puppeteers -- and do the puppets-within-the-story as hand puppets, Punch and Judy style.

A short video from the 2005 "Russell Hoban Some-Poasyum" fan convention of the author reading from his then-latest novel. Taken by Olaf Schneider and reproduced with kind permission of Russell Hoban.