Review: How Two Brothers Lives Are Affected By the Choice of Crime, Told By Their Knife
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 19, 2012
It's very seldom if you've read a lot over the years that you come across a story that's told in a very unique way anymore.  Samuel Clemente with The Old Man and the Knife, manages to do just that though.  Bookended between two short blurbs by a narrator who is never identified, but would be the voiceover guy as the opening and end credits roll if this was a movie, is a brilliant tale, told by a knife who met the first of his two Smith brother owners, when the boy was just 14. Although it's not stated, the knife's lack of backstory on any other owners and the way it learns, makes me believe it was only recently made (or born from its own point of view) shortly before Andy acquired it. The Smith brothers are growing up in a rough neighbourhood where they, especially Andy believe the more violent you are, the more respect and spoils you'll get.  If you like the old hard boiled crime novels, you'll love this. You're not going to like either of the knife's owners but it's hard not to like the knife, even though he gets up to very bad things. The knife is sort of like a simpleton whose values, desires and attitudes are formed through its environment.  In the nurture verse nature argument, this story certainly highlights how something not born with beliefs, but only ever exposed to a certain way of life and getting it's seldom praise and rewards from carrying out those things will develop that culture's beliefs and morals. In much the same way a dog who has been made to fight other dogs from when it was a puppy becomes a violent adult dog.I won't be suprised to see this 20 minutes long short story become professionally published amongst some household name authors in a various author hard boiled crime or even horror pyhsical book in the future. The Old Man and the Knife is that good. I didn't like all the book advertisements and previews of other work that make up more than 50% of this download after the short story though.