Russell Hoban

[JSC]

I just heard that Russell Hoban died last night. Sad news.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/14/russell-hoban-dies-86

Strangely, I just finished a piece of writing yesterday afternoon in which I referred to the mythological idea of 'shades', existence continuing in the underworld after death. I didn't make the reference explicit, but I was thinking quite specifically of Hoban's libretto for the Birtwistle opera The Second Mrs Kong, in which all of the characters are shades.

[Selva Oscura]

That's very sad. His Riddley Walker and Pilgermann in particular are things I still return to now and again, both having had a deep and lasting effect. (I don't know his opera libretti at all though.)

[martle]

Riddley Walker and Pilgermann

Yes indeed - the former knocked me sideways, not least in the way it managed to invent a credible post-apocalyptic language that 'children' would understand.

The '2nd Mrs Kong' libretto was rather fine, as I remember - although it came in for some panning on first outing I think.

RIP

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I knew his work as a children's author - The Mouse and his Child was acknowledged as a classic, but personally I adored The Dancing Tigers - an exquisitely written (and illustrated) story which captivated all ages, the tigers' dancing driving the Rajah out hunting them to his own death.

[oliver sudden]

How Tom beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen

[Sally Ayrey]

Gosjh I didn't know this guy at all, was he any good?

[JSC]

Gosh I didn't know this guy at all, was he any good?

I think the Guardian article I linked to gives a fairly good idea of that, doesn't it?

There's also http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/nov/23/fiction which is fairly in-depth and very interesting.

His son Wieland is a composer and a noted translator (of several things by Adorno, of the Celan-Ingeborg Bachmann correspondence, of several things on contemporary music [including a few liner notes on Kairos etc.], and most recently I think of Bubbles, a book of eco-philosophy by Peter Sloterdijk).

[JSC]

There's now a full (if rather hastily written, to judge from a couple of awkwardly similar locutions across different paragraphs) obituary at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/14/russell-hoban.