The book that broke my heart the most this year
The Knife of Never Letting Go by
Patrick Ness ($18.99), a fantastic dystopian
science
fiction novel for readers twelve and up.
It's rare that I have my heart completely
ripped out by a novel, much less an
ostensibly YA book like The Knife of Never
Letting Go. This happened about
three-quarters through the novel, and I think
it was best summed up by a commenter on Mr.
Ness' Web site:
"It may be the only book that made me cover
my eyes, in the hope that, if I didn't look,
the next page and half wouldn't
happen....even though I knew it was
inevitable. I then cried my way through the
next page, chucked the book down and sulked
for several hours before picking it up again."
I didn't sulk for hours before picking it up,
but I have to say that if Mr. Ness had been
in the room with me when I read the part in
question, I would have wanted to punch him in
the eye. Instead, I cried like a baby, and
I'm still mad at him for it. And this was
only the heaviest of many, many heartbreaking
moments.
But I can't stay mad, because, damn, The
Knife of Never Letting Go is such a
wonderful book, better than Sea of
Trolls, better even than the magnificent
final volume of the Harry Potter saga. It's
dark, it's brutal, and it ends in a
horrifying cliffhanger. It is definitely
teen-and-up; don't even think of giving this
to someone under 10.
Here's the scoop: We begin with the narrator,
Todd Hewitt, the last remaining boy in the
colony of Prentisstown, on the planet of New
World. (There was mass migration after Old
World became untenable.) The settlers in
Prentisstown have had a rough go of it. They
fought a war with an indigenous race
nicknamed the Spackle, and were infected with
a germ that killed all the women and half the
men. Said infection also caused all the
domestic animals to learn to talk, and,
worse, caused the remaining residents to
become broadcasting telepaths, i.e. their
thoughts (called, in aggregate, the Noise)
are constantly audible to everyone. There
are no secrets. There's still lying, of
course. As Todd points out, "Noise is mostly
lies." (The Noise is represented in the
novel by random snippets with different
typefaces, and it's a great, if highly
creepy, concept.) Todd's parents have both
been killed by the germ, so he lives with his
adoptive parents Ben and Cillian.
In Prentisstown, all boys become men at age
13, and at the start of the novel, Todd is
just a month away. Then he's out one day,
picking apples with his loyal dog Manchee
(who has become my favorite canine character
ever) , when he finds something impossible:
quiet. A hole in the Noise. Worse still, he
soon finds the source: a girl, who makes no
Noise, named Viola.
All hell promptly breaks loose, and soon,
Todd, Viola, and Manchee are on the run,
pursued by the men of Prentisstown, who are
harboring many appalling secrets. Most of
the novel concerns the chase, and it is
utterly harrowing--no place is safe, and Todd
and Viola have a long road toward learning to
trust each other. (Manchee of course trusts
them both.) This is one part of the genius
of The Knife of Never Letting Go-the
pacing is relentless and scary, much like
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
(especially in Rowling's thrilling opening
sequence). The reader is never allowed to
get comfortable. The novel is nearly 500
pages, and it pretty much goes without a
rest. The other part of the genius is the
brilliant rendering of Todd the narrator's
voice. He's uneducated, illiterate even (an
important plot point), and his narration
includes many misspellings ("creachers",
"preparayshuns," etc.), but he's also
sharp-eyed with a lovely turn of phrase.
He's an incredibly compelling narrator, as he
runs and realizes along the way that pretty
much everything he's ever been told has been
a complete lie. And things only get worse
from there. Much, much worse.
The novel won the Guardian Prize in England,
but has also attracted criticism for the
brutal violence and general hopelessness (it
is the first in a trilogy, so one can hope
things eventually get better--and given the
power of Todd's and Viola's spirits, it
probably will). There are characters of
purest good (Todd and Viola, Hildy, Ben,
Manchee, etc.), and purest evil (the Mayor of
Prentisstown, the psychotic preacher Aaron,
who has more lives than Freddy Krueger).
There are moments of beauty and majesty, as
when a half-wit farmer ferries Todd, Viola,
and Manchee across a vast herd of giant cows
whose Noise--remember, animals have it
too--says only "Here." Ultimately, it's about
human nature, and if the first installment
leaves the reader a wee bit pessimistic,
there are many signs of strength as well.
The novel is beautiful, funny (see beginning
below), scary, and heartbreaking. The
opening few sentences are funny and suck you
right in, represented below, but please don't
come punch me in the eye if you read this and
it breaks your heart. Because it will. As
noted, I cried, and not just a little. But
it's also the best YA novel, the best sci-fi
novel, the best dystopian novel, and one of
the just plain best novels I've ever read.
Here is the beginning:
"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.'
"'Poo. Poo, Todd.'
"'I said shut it!'"
