The Knife of Never Letting Go Part I
Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown, the last remaining human habitation in New World. The war between the humans and the Spackle, the native aliens of New World had been very destructive. The Spackle released the Noise germ, which killed all of the women and half of the men. The other half suffered from Noise, as they were suddenly able to hear each other’s thoughts as well as the thoughts of their animals. Now, there is no Spackle on the planet. There are 146 men in Prentisstown, and one boy, Todd Hewitt, who is a month away from his thirteenth birthday. On that Todd Hewitt will become a man.
Todd comes to the swamp outside of town with his happy dog, Manchee. He is shocked to encounter Aaron, the priest, who punches Todd for swearing in his thoughts. Todd continues to the deeper areas of the swamp in search of apples and finds a sudden hole in the Noise. Something emanated silence, and as Todd tries to approach the silence, he is filled with immense grief. The hole disappears, and Todd decides to return home to his foster parents, Cillian and Ben. He walks through town, trying to hide the incident of the silence from his Noise as he passes the noisy pub and Mayor Prentiss’s large home. Mayor Prentiss and his men practice strange sentences as they try to establish order and clarity in their noise. Ben returns to his farm home, where he fights with Cillian about his chores. He finds Ben at the back of the farm and shares with him the incident with the noise. Ben becomes extremely frightened and Cillian comes running to them. They tell Ben that he needs to leave Prentisstown immediately.
Ben and Cillian begin discussing a plan as they hurry Todd into the house and hand him a rucksack with supplies along with a well-packed book. They tell him that they had always planned on sending him away before his birthday but they had kept that knowledge hidden deep in their noise so that no one would even find out. Davy Prentiss Jr, the sheriff, and son of Mayor Prentiss, suddenly knocks on the door claiming that something strange had been heard in Ben’s Noise as he passed through town. Cillian decides to assault and turn out Davy as they have already decided that Ben needs to escape the town today. Cillian stays to hold back any reinforcements that Davy may bring while Ben takes Todd and Manchee toward the river.
Todd is completely unable to understand what is occurring, and he refuses to leave Ben and Cillian as they prepare to fight against the town. Ben asks him to trust him, and understand that the plan was something that his mother had wished for him. They wanted to shield Todd from the ritual that all boys in Prentisstown performed upon becoming men, something so terrible that Todd doesn’t believe it.
Ben asks Todd to read his mother’s journal, which is inside the rucksack, for better answers. He gives Todd a knife and asks him to follow the map. Ben returns to Cillian while Todd heads toward the swamp, but he is forced to kill a Croc before he gets there. He is then suddenly confronted by Aaron who had sent the sheriff after him since he had wanted to keep the noise a secret. Aaron is grabbed by a Croc and Todd escapes. He finds the tear in the noise again and realizes that it is not a Spackle but a girl.
Analysis
Ness creates a fantasy world in which men project their thoughts onto everyone around them. The result of this telepathic ability is termed Noise. In the book, this telepathic ability seems to create disharmony rather than encourage cooperation. We learn from Todd that reading a man’s mind did not allow you to know the man as most men tended to lie to themselves the most. Todd characterizes Noise as a result of the chaos that is ever present in the minds of men. It is evident from Todd’s experience of Prentisstown, that the men in town suffer from serious mental ailments that have often resulted in suicide, drug abuse, and frequent violence.
On the other hand, the Noise that emanates from creatures like Manchee, Todd’s dog, and other animals in New World, is focused on food and the events around them. Todd is also able to differentiate people’s character to a certain extent through their noise, as he describes how unique Ben’s noise was to him.
