Patrick Ness planned well. The first book
in the Chaos Walking trilogy has a name that you can remember. (The title of
the sequel, The Ask and the Answer,
similarly balances mystery and familiarity.) In Knife, Ness introduces not only a protagonist but an entire world
with a conundrum. In fact, this book is full of conundrums. Even the bad guys
have them, as Ness patiently reveals.
After hooking readers with the title, Ness
shoves them into a world that’s immediately as familiar and strange as that
title. The narrative is so homey and immediate, written in the first-person
perspective of a boy who’s almost thirteen, that much of what’s strange fades
until the strangeness builds up and bursts out.
The central premise, obvious in the first
page of the book, is that the protagonist, Todd Hewitt, and his dog, Manchee,
have a telepathic connection. In fact, Todd can hear the thoughts, referred to
as “Noise” throughout the book, of other people and animals, and they can hear
his. This was the result, we soon learn, of a germ that made something else
happen, something that leaves Todd’s society looking very different from our
own.
The first big concept is deceptively simple:
on an alien world, people have telepathic connections with each other and
animals. The soon-revealed other results of what caused those connections are
not simple, but flow smoothly and naturally from the cause. The most remarkable
part of Ness’ artistry, I think, is weaving these great concepts into a
narrative that jolts the reader with surprising tension, and not a little
violence, interspersed with very real human considerations (fairness and
justice come up a lot without preachiness on the author’s part).
Ness mercilessly tests his protagnist, Todd
Hewitt, with physical and emotional distress. Todd is joined in the book by a
few strong and deep supporting characters, and an abundance of antagonists. All
of the significant characters speak and act as genuine individuals. For
example, Todd’s dog, Manchee, “speaks” (telepathically) and behaves in a way
that suits what I know of dog behavior very well. The very beginning of the
book reads,
The first thing you
find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to
say. About anything.
“Need a poo, Todd.”
“Shut up, Manchee.”
Ness indulges in a little potty humor to
get the point across, but when Todd gets fed up with Manchee and swats him,
Manchee’s reaction (“Ow? Todd? Ow?”) neatly captures the strange and familiar
all at once.
There’s plenty more “Ow” to come. The
supporting characters are defined by loss, and Ness masterfully parcels out the
pace at which these losses is revealed. One character in particular comes to
life as fully as Todd, and the workings of narrative perspective mesh tightly
with the world and the characters’ relationship. I’m treading carefully to
avoid spoiling this, because it’s a clever and significant aspect of the book.
Antagonists, too, get their due – although not
necessarily in any moral sense. There’s no hiding who Todd’s enemies are. They
come across as enemies at the start, and not only because Todd can hear their
thoughts. However, they have complex motivations, some of them almost
superhuman abilities, and Ness reveals them as slowly and tantalizingly as he
does the protagonist and his allies.
One of the further joys of reading The Knife of Never Letting Go is the
language. Todd’s first-person narrative is laced with misspellings. This marks
his speech as accented, and him as barely literate. However, the publisher (Candlewick)
has indulged Ness with a special, loose font (and later, an explosion of fonts)
to indicate the feeling of Noise Todd hears from other characters. It’s
integrated into the paperback cover design as well, and generally used to good
effect.
The
Knife of Never Letting Go is violent, morally rich,
and a compelling read. I started to read it out loud to my kids (then 11 and
seven years old), and soon realized it was inappropriate. The conflicts in the
Harry Potter books are, initially, much tamer and more cartoonish, though they
mature as Harry ages, and the fear is more sustained than in the rip-roaring
plots Rick Riordan drags Percy Jackson through. Ness is relentless, and for
this I agree with the publisher’s age minimum recommended age of 14 on the back
cover. I’m way over the maximum of 18, but I think it’s safer to ignore that
than the minimum.
