Riddley Walker
Riddley Walker is the 12-year-boy narrator of this strange and difficult and complex trek through the world of linguistic imagination which takes place a couple of thousand years after the nuclear holocaust brings on the apocalypse. The narration is the star here far more than the story. Riddley does not really even get to enjoy the pleasures of his story being one in which the teller of the tale is greater than the tale since he is clearly an invention of the author and the central significance Riddley’s role in a puppet show serves to underline this purpose step back from realism.
Abel Goodparley
Goodparley is a puppeteer in the traveling performance of a story featuring corrupted version of Punch and Judy which serves to tell the tale of how the world came to be destroyed. It is, in fact, Riddley’s unearthing of a very old Punch puppet that stimulates the narrative forward.
Lissener
Sharing the same birthday as Riddley is Lissener, who is kind of the story’s wise seer. Except that, well, he’s blind so instead of being a seer, he is a…that’s right. Except that it turns out that when wisdom is most required, Lissener drops the ball a little. He has a plan to save the world from future destruction, but it is short-sighted. Because, well, he’s blind.
