The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
The first volume of Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy is titled The Knife of Never Letting Go. The series takes place in a world that was just colonized by settlers who encountered a few surprises there. The biggest was a plague/virus that had all men broadcast their thoughts constantly and uncontrolled so that everyone could hear what they were thinking. The continual background noise became referred to as “The Noise” because the thoughts couldn’t be blocked out or tuned out. The existence of an intelligent native species known to the colonists as the Spackle on the planet came as a second shock. Life is more difficult than it may seem because of the subsequent conflict with the Spackle, the societal unrest brought on by the Noise, and the general decline of technology.
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
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Todd and Viola, are two young characters that are the centre of the show. Todd, a young lad who is almost thirteen, struggles to make ends meet in his small town of Prentisstown. He is the last boy in his community and an orphan (his mother died in the plague, along with all other women). He is waiting for his birthday so that he can undergo the rite of passage that will turn him into a man. He is with his dog Manchee when we first meet him, and to Todd’s dismay, Manchee’s vocalizations are largely along the lines of “have to poo” and “squirrel!” After a violent run-in with the town preacher Aaron, who appears to be out to get him, he discovers an odd “empty place” in the Noise.
Todd informs his adopted parents Cillian and Ben as they travel home through the hamlet (a skillfully planned way to introduce us to the setting, as well as to various others whose thoughts we overhear and to a sense of underlying dread in town). They abruptly inform him he must leave the hamlet, and Todd finds himself fleeing for his life while being pursued by a local posse led by Mayor Prentiss and his cruel son. On his way out of town, he passes by a young woman who represents the beginning of a new wave of settlers and who is the origin of the earlier “empty space.”
After her scout ship crashed, killing her parents, she flees with Todd in the hopes that they can make it to the capital city where she can communicate with her fleet and Todd can discover the truth about Prentisstown and the rest of the world since it is obvious that the majority of what he was taught growing up was false.
The tale moves along at a rather rapid clip as Todd and Viola repeatedly find only momentary refuge. The speed drove me along rather smoothly, but it’s pretty relentless, and to be honest, a bit more breathing room could have been good. I will admit that the “Character Who Cannot Die,” which has never been my favourite plot element, is partially responsible for the pace and cliffhanger-upon-cliffhanger episodic aspect of the show. I would confess that this grew tiresome and is one of the problems that greatly diminished the book.
