The big hand of the clock is at 12. The little hand is at 7

[sovay]

Why did I not know until after he died that Russell Hoban of Riddley Walker (1980) also wrote Bedtime for Frances (1960) and Emmett Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (1971)? I read the latter as a very small child and the former in college; I never put the names together. I was prepared to miss a luminary of science fiction and now I'm grieving for a small pencil-drawn badger.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

My favorite was Bread and Jam for Frances, though I was partial to A Baby Sister for Frances, too.

The incredibly fancy lunch Frances makes for herself once she's embraced a gustatory world beyond jam appealed to me tremendously. I wanted to take a doily and a vase of violets to lunch, too.

[barry-king.livejournal.com]

Oh, my; I just saw the obituary, and just yesterday I was just asking my writing group if any of them had read Riddley Walker.

I had the good luck to have had Hoban around nearly a lifetime: I was introduced to both the Hoban's work through Bread and Jam for Frances. The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz was a book that helped me make sense of the dysfunctionality inherent in all families in my teen years, and Riddley Walker is the book that first made me realize that SFF can contain great art, and that it's not just about imagining the future, but re-constructing the past-possible.

I hope some of his backlist is brought back out for reprints. Very few writers, even among the most skilled, have such facility with making both objective and subjective reality integral part of their plotlines.

[caprine.livejournal.com]

Alas!

Riddley Walker was one of the most awesome things I read in my teens.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I never realised that, either. I remember Bedtime for Frances well.

May he rest in peace.

I was prepared to miss a luminary of science fiction and now I'm grieving for a small pencil-drawn badger.

*hugs*
I'm sorry for your loss.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

the first book of his that I read was The Lion of Boaz Jachin ...

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Russell Hoban? Oh no.

I grieve with you.

Nine

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Goddamn - I loved Riddley Walker with a passion. I know some of his late work: Amaryllis Night And Day, and a couple of other novels I can't name right now; but nothing of his children's novels.

[peripeteia.livejournal.com]

Gutted to hear of Hoban's passing. I just discovered him earlier this year (The Sea-Thing Child is remarkable) and feel like there's a lot of catching up to do.

Hello, also, from a new reader.

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

I have a thing for tea sets even today because of Frances. *sigh*

The dichotomy struck me too, when I figured it out. He must have been quite an interesting person.

[gaudynight78.livejournal.com]

I know a toddler in North Carolina whose name is Emmett Zaphod Lastname, after Emmett Otter and (obviously) the Hitchhiker's Guide.

I actually had no idea Russell Hoban was still alive, so hearing of his death was, in a way, a kind of double whammy.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Not to mention The Mouse and His Child!