"What I am now is waves and particles, I don't need to walk around, I just go."
".....still I am of the world, still I have something to say, how could it be otherwise, nothing comes to an end, the action never stops, it only changes...."
I trusted you with the idea of me, and you lost it.- from The Medusa Frequency
“When one is a child, when one is young, when one has not yet reached the age of recognition, one thinks that the world is strong, that the strength of God is endless and unchanging. But after the thing has happened – whatever that thing might be – that brings recognition, then one knows irrevocably how very fragile is the world, how very, very fragile; it is like one of those ideas that one has in dreams: so clear and so self-explaining are they that we make no special effort to remember. Then of course they vanish as we wake and there is nothing there but the awareness that something very clear has altogether vanished.”
Certainly we are slaves of that which looks out through our eyes, and it is nothing simple, that outlooker; does it want to live, does it want to die? As with my arms red up to the elbows I sew up the wounded I crave to be where the shouting is, the cries and groans, the clash of weapons. I am afraid to be there but what looks out through my eyes wants to put me there, it doesn't want to be left out of anything, it wants to be everywhere at once, it wants to be included in all matters of life and death, wants to be at the same time here in the shuddering light of the torches and there across the river in the obscurity of battle and night.
Certainly we are the slaves of that which looks out through our eyes, and it is nothing simple, that outlooker; does it want to live, does it want to die? As with my arms red up to the elbows I sew up the wounded I crave to be where the shouting is, the cries and groans, the clash of weapons. I am afraid to be there but what looks out through my eyes wants to put me there, it doesn't want to be left out of anything, it wants to be everywhere at once, it wants to be included in all matters of life and death, wants to be at the same time here in the shuddering light of the torches and there across the river in the obscurity of battle and the night.
Mortal life is a difficult proposition because hardly anything can be experienced as what it actually is; everything is time-distorted. In childhood we wait for things that seem too long in coming, we wait for treats, for presents, for festivals and holidays, we wait for growing up. There is so much waiting that suddenly childhood itself is gone with all that was being waited for. As grown-ups we find ourselves pitched headlong down a steep and slippery slide with everything hurtling towards us at great speed; some things smash us full in the face, others streak past half-glimpsed or unseen; everything has happened before we were ready for it. Only after the hurly-burly of mortal life is over can one have a really good look at what has happened; unburdened by choice and unthreatened by consequences one is able to sort through the half-glimpses of a lifetime and find perhaps one or two workable fragments of recognition.
My aeons-long sojourn with the tiny, tiny dancing giants in the dim red caverns of sleep had made me realize how provincial my outlook had been before.
Being is not a steady state but an occulting one: we are all of us a succession of stillness blurring into motion on the wheel of action, and it is in those spaces of black between the pictures that we find the heart of mystery in which we are never allowed to rest.
There is a point where pattern becomes motion; the pattern has found me and I must move, must be aware of moving, must be a motion, an action of the Word. Poor bare tuned fork.
To me it seems that everything that happens is language, everything that goes on is saying something.
We are the children of the mystery that inhabits us and I believe that it wants us to meet it with innocence of becoming; not to meet it is to be a failed child.
The black howled in the tunnels, the tracks fled before the train. Whatever lived walking upside-down in the concrete put its paws against the feet of the people standing on the platform, its cold soft paws. One two, three, four, walking softly in the chill silence upside-down with great soft cold paws. Underground said words to itself, names. No one listened. Footsteps covered the words, the names.
Right, said Kleinzeit. Enough. He opened the door of the yellow paper's cage, and it sprang upon him. Over and over they rolled together, bloody and roaring. Doesn't matter what the title is to start with, he said, anything will do, HERO, I'll call it. Chapter 1. He wrote the first line while the yellow paper clawed his guts, the pain was blinding. It'll kill me, said Kleinzeit, there's no surviving this. He wrote the second line, the third, completed the first paragraph. The roaring and the blood stopped, the yellow paper rubbed purring against his leg, the first paragraph danced and sang, leaped and played on the green grass in the dawn.
Sometimes I don't know anything at all for large spaces; sometimes I know many things all in the same place. My perceptions are uneven, my understanding patchy but I have action; I go. I can't tell this as a story because it isn't a story; a story is what remains when you leave out most of the action.
It was between six and seven in the morning. The moon was low in the sky. It was a waxing moon, a gibbous one; it was a particular moon. I raised the window-blind. The pinky-orange hibiscus street lamp outside the window was the same as always. I opened the front door and went out into the foredawn, into the hissing of the silence and the humming of the underground trains standing empty with lighted windows on the far side of the common. Unseen birds twittered but there was no crow to shout and flaunt its blackness.
I heard my footsteps; I saw under the lamps my shadows first before me, then behind. 'Nothing to declare,' I said.
One of the earliest symptoms is a growing dread of blank paper, and at this stage preventative action may still have some effect ... I always use 80-gram yellow A4; it’s the kind of yellow the paper manufacturers call gold, and gold is what one is trying to refine the base metal of one’s thoughts into ... I never use white paper - to intensify the blankness of a blank sheet by using white paper is to run to meet trouble considerably more than halfway.
Sister stood holding the helmet, listening to the clink of money falling into it. I don't know if this is right, she said to God.
What's wrong with it? said God.
Is it, I don't know, heathenish? said Sister.
You've got to move with the times, said God.
Are we talking about the same thing? said Sister.
One usually does, said God. I mean how much is there to talk about really. It's pretty much all one thing, isn't it.
One assumes that the world simply is and is and is, but it isn't. It is like music that we hear a moment at a time and put together in our heads. But this music, unlike other music, cannot be performed again.
Loneliness is the essential human condition. Everything else is gravy.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
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On 1 March 2012 Walker Books published Russell Hoban's final young-adult book Soonchild, with amazing illustrations by Alexis Deacon. Read a lovely review in the Guardian, see some exclusive spreads from inside the book and get more details and a text extract at the Head of Orpheus website. Walker tweeted photos of Russ and Alexis at their offices in January 2011.
Also, on 4 October 2012 Walker published a beautiful new children's book. Rosie's Magic Horse is illustrated by the legendary Quentin Blake (with whom Russ had formerly collaborated on Trouble on Thunder Mountain, among other titles) and tells the story of a little girl and her collection of ice-lolly sticks, which dream of being a horse.
On 4 February 2012 the Slickman A4 Quotation Event celebrated 10 years of sharing Russell Hoban quotes, with many fans across the world posting their favourites in public places both real and virtual. This site was updated daily between 4 February and 10 March 2012 with these quotes. See all 2012 quotes
Russell Hoban's last novel Angelica Lost and Found was published in November 2010 and is available from Amazon and all good bookshops. There were good reviews of the book in the Guardian and Independent and an excellent interview with Russell Hoban in the Scotsman, as well as a revealing audio interview at Tim Haigh Reads Books.
The London restaurant Gaby's Deli, which is mentioned in Russell Hoban's books The Bat Tattoo and Linger Awhile, is under threat. The landlords want to close it and, reportedly, replace it with a chain restaurant. Give their Facebook page a like or sign their petition.
In 2005 the first international convention for Russell Hoban fans took place in London, and was marked by the publication of a fantastic 48-page booklet featuring exclusive contributions from innumerable fans and associates including novelist David Mitchell and actress Glenda Jackson. A wonderful memento of the event, it's also a beautiful collector's item and must-have for any Hoban fan. Although in limited supply, copies of the booklet are still available at £6.00 each plus p&p. Order direct from the Russell Hoban Some-Poasyum website.
Russell Hoban turned 86 on 4 February 2011 and fans celebrated in traditional style by leaving quotes from his books in public places. Browse their quotes here. The Russell Hoban community group The Kraken sent Russ a birthday gift of The Kraken Rum. Read a report about this at the Fantastic Reads blog.
To celebrate 30 years in print of Russell Hoban's most famous novel Riddley Walker, SA4QE broke with its February tradition and conducted an extraordinary SA4QE on 5 November 2010 in which participants shared their favourite quotes from the book. This site was updated throughout November 2010 with the quotes submitted.
Richard Cooper's 2003 Hoban Adventure: 1 day. 29 London locations. 33 Hoban quotes. 2 sore feet.
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