Rating: 5/5
*2020 review*
War only destroys. No one escapes from a war. No one. Not even the survivors. You accept things that would appal you at any other time because life has temporarily lost all meaning.
I’ve just finished rereading The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness, the second book in the Chaos Walking Trilogy and the sequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go which I reread and reviewed a few weeks ago. Ness’ trilogy still remains one of my favourite series – I have to give this book the 5 stars it still deserves almost two years after I first read it!
Todd Hewitt, a fourteen-year-old boy living on New World—a planet colonised by people from Old World (Earth) twenty years before Todd was born—is running from a ruthless army, led by a man named Mayor Prentiss, with Viola Eade, a girl from the Old World whose scout ship crashed while on a reconnaissance mission of Todd’s planet. At the end of The Knife of Never Letting Go, the two reached Haven, the one New World settlement that Todd had been promised was safe. But as soon as they reached their destination and it seemed that luck was finally with them, Viola was shot by Mayor Prentiss’ son and the Mayor himself greeted the pair, introducing them to what was once Haven and was now New Prentisstown.
We’ve run right into a trap. We’ve run right off the end of the world.
In The Ask and the Answer, Todd and Viola are separated by the Mayor at New Prentisstown. Soon enough, Viola finds herself caught up in a terrorist organisation (the Answer) while Todd, desperately trying to save Viola’s life, agrees to join the Mayor’s counter organisation (the Ask).
This book was made particularly interesting by the philosophy subtly woven through, especially the philosophical questions that arise when it comes to power and politics. When challenged by Mr Ledger, the former Mayor of Haven, about why Todd joined the Ask, Ledger described Todd’s reply as “the words of a sage in the voice of a hick.” There are good arguments for following both the Ask and the Answer, but which—if any—of the arguments are right?
One character, a man named Ivan, who joined Mayor Prentiss early on in the war that quickly engulfed New World, once said that “you go where the power is. That’s how you stay alive.” Ivan wound up dead, shot by the Mayor who he followed so devotedly, but I’m not supposed to know that yet (that all happens in the next book!).
One particular section also reminded me of something going on round about now…:
And people have pulled together, haven’t they? They obey the curfew and take their assigned amounts of water and food without fuss and stay inside when they’re s’posed to and turn off their lights after a certain hour and generally keep getting on with things even as it gets colder. You ride through the town, you even see stores open, big lines of people outside ’em, waiting to get what they need. Their eyes looking at the ground. Waiting it out.
Mayor Prentiss says something a little while later that also reminded me of a particular something going on:
It is only eternal vigilance that will lead us into the light. Let your neighbour know he is watched. Only then are we truly safe.
Hmm…
The book is prefixed by a quote by Nietzsche:
Battle not with monsters
lest you become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you.
This idea that your inner monster might emerge if you let it is another recurring theme in the book. One question related to this was particularly prominent in the book: is everyone redeemable? During their time in both the Ask and the Answer, Todd and Viola perform all sorts of awful things, but can we forgive them for that, knowing the consequences that would follow if they hadn’t done them, and the conditions under which they felt they had to? At one point, Todd protests that he was only doing what he was told. The Mayor mocks, “I was only following orders. The refuge of scoundrels since the dawn of time.” I thought that was another interesting point.
A wonderful book, packed full of adventure and philosophy and fantasy. Can’t wait to get onto Book 3, Monsters of Men!
If you ever want to see how small you are in the plan of God, just stand at the edge of an ocean.
*2019 review*
It’s surprising that I liked this book because it’s so very different from all the other books that I enjoy reading. But I really liked it. In fact I literally couldn’t put it down!
The plot continues as Todd and Viola are tragically separated at Haven—or “New Prentisstown”, now—and both struggle unsuccessfully to find each other. Then, at the peak of troubles, a rebel group known as the “Answer” strike back, bombing the town in an attempt to overthrow the wicked, heartless President. In return, the President leads the “Ask”, filling prisons with men and women whom he Asks (tortures horribly until death), and whom the “Answer” rescues—though perhaps not in the desired way.