{{Short description|Book by Robert McLiam Wilson}} {{Use British English|date=September 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}} {{Infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject Books --> | name = Ripley Bogle | title_orig = | translator = | image = File:RipleyBogle.jpg | caption = First edition | author = Robert McLiam Wilson | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = United Kingdom | language = English | series = | genre = | publisher = Andre Deutsch (UK)<br />Arcade (US) | pub_date = 1989 (UK)<br />1998 (US) | english_pub_date = | media_type = Print | pages = 288 | isbn = 0-233-98392-9 | preceded_by = | followed_by = }}
'''''Ripley Bogle''''' is the debut novel of Northern Irish author Robert McLiam Wilson, published in 1989 in the UK although not until 1998 in the US.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_R/ripley_bogle2.asp |title=ReadingGroupGuides.com – Robert McLiam Wilson interview |access-date=15 November 2012 |archive-date=14 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130514081335/http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_r/ripley_bogle2.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref> Written when he was 24, it is arguably his most acclaimed,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.biography.com/people/robert-mcliam-wilson-215185|title=Robert McLiam Wilson biography|access-date=15 November 2012|archive-date=23 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180323025249/https://www.biography.com/people/robert-mcliam-wilson-215185|url-status=dead}}</ref> winning the Rooney Prize and the Hughes Prize in 1989, and a Betty Trask Award and the Irish Book Awards the following year.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/about-us.html/editions/ripley-bogle/9780749394653|title=About us|website=www.penguin.co.uk}}</ref> Many elements of the novel are autobiographical; the author himself was born in Belfast, attended Cambridge University, dropped out and became homeless.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405192446_chunk_g978140519244617_ss1-8|title=''The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction Volume I: Twentieth-Century British and Irish Fiction : McLiam Wilson, Robert'' by Matthew McGuire}}</ref> It is regarded as a significant novel, producing "both a re-evaluation of Northern Irish literary identity, and an alternative perspective on the Troubles."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=26AgoZ4TiGkC&q=ripley+bogle+falls+road&pg=PA139|title=The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction, 1950-2000|first=Dominic|last=Head|date=7 March 2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521669665|via=Google Books}}</ref>
==Plot introduction== The novel is set over four days in London, where homeless 22-year-old Ripley Bogle aimlessly wanders the streets and, with angry satire, reflects on his life, directly addressing the reader. There are frequent flashbacks to growing up on the Turf Lodge estate in West Belfast during The Troubles, his move to Cambridge University and his subsequent decline into homelessness.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/bibdbs/pelaschiar3.htm|title="Writing the North – The Contemporary Novel in Northern Ireland", by Laura Pelaschiar}}</ref>
==Reception== *"An astonishing performance, fluent, profound, angry. It made me laugh; it made me think; it made me envious." – ''The Irish Times''<ref name=litpub>{{Cite web|url=http://thelitpub.com/featured-books/ripley-bogle/|title=For my money, Robert McLiam Wilson has written the best novel to come out of Northern Ireland in the last 30 years|access-date=16 November 2012|archive-date=9 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309114503/http://thelitpub.com/featured-books/ripley-bogle/|url-status=dead}}</ref> *"Ripley Bogle is probably one of the best Irish novels to have appeared in the last decade. It goes straight for the jugular." ''The Times''<ref name=litpub/> *Zachary Leader in the ''London Review of Books'' compares the lead character novel to John Self and Charles Highway in Martin Amis's ''Money'' and ''The Rachel Papers'': "''Ripley Bogle'' isn't as good a novel as ''The Rachel Papers'', let alone ''Money'', but its author has talent and nerve". He goes on to say "Wilson is a writer worth watching – for all the present novel's indebtedness and clamouring, bumptious self-regard."<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v11/n12/zachary-leader/down-and-out-in-london-and-amis|title=Down and Out in London and Amis|first=Zachary|last=Leader|journal=London Review of Books|date=22 June 1989|volume=11|issue=12|via=www.lrb.co.uk}}</ref> *Liam Callanan in the ''New York Times'' writes "The shadow of ''Ulysses'' looms large throughout the novel, since Bogle's wisecracking ramblings around London over the course of a long weekend draw a clear parallel to Bloom's wanderings through Dublin, almost to the point of parody." and concludes "By detailing the painful minutiae of homeless existence with aching accuracy, Bogle succeeds in making the impersonal hostility of street life in London seem almost as cruel as the intimate terror of Belfast. He is unsettlingly deadpan in his descriptions of one horrific episode after another, but making readers uncomfortable seems to be precisely Wilson's aim. What better way to evoke a world of senseless, skittish violence than to disconcert the reader with a challenging – and puzzling – narrator? And what better way to leave the reader truly puzzled than by tossing in a series of gratuitous twists at the end of the novel?"<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/reviews/980517.17callant.html|title=Bad Scenes in Belfast and London|website=archive.nytimes.com}}</ref>
==Stage adaptations== It was adapted for the stage in 1997 at Theatre503 when it was directed by Richard Hurst<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.uktw.co.uk/archive/London/Theatre503/Play/Ripley-Bogle/L1399491300/|title=Archive for Ripley Bogle at Theatre503, London. 1997. [PLAY]|first=UK Theatre|last=Web|website=UK Theatre Web}}</ref> and again in 2005 when adapted by actor Sean O Tarpaigh (at Camden People's Theatre).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/8081/ripley-bogle|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130505095912/http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/8081/ripley-bogle|url-status=dead|archive-date=5 May 2013|title=The Stage review}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.fringereport.com/0505ripleybogle.php |title=Ripley Bogle Verdict: Homeless man drama |access-date=15 November 2012 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303235207/http://www.fringereport.com/0505ripleybogle.php |url-status=dead }}</ref>
==See also== * {{Portal-inline|Novels}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wilson-ripley.html Chapter One online] *[http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_r/ripley_bogle1.asp Reading group guide] *[http://152.44.44.245/news.php?id=1456 ''Poker007''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200927092608/http://152.44.44.245/news.php?id=1456 |date=27 September 2020 }}
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Category:1989 British novels Category:English novels Category:Novels set in Belfast Category:Novels set in London Category:Novels with unreliable narrators Category:Novels about homelessness Category:Novels set in the University of Cambridge Category:Books about the Troubles (Northern Ireland) Category:British satirical novels Category:Novels from Northern Ireland Category:Homelessness in England Category:1989 debut novels Category:André Deutsch books Category:Arcade Publishing books