It was hard not having a soul, most especially when you could remember having had one.
I’ve always loved the way this novel approaches the classic journey of metamorphosis and resurrection. On a fundamental level, it is a story about the death of one man and the birth of another. While this is a common motif in storytelling, the moments of death and rebirth frequently come back-to-back in a story (i.e. typically, late in the story, the worst possible thing happens to the hero and he/she is then reborn). In the case of Without Remorse, the man Kelly was dies in the beginning, and Kelly spends much of the story as a shadow of a man – a ghost haunting a former life without a sense – or seemingly even a desire – that he will ever be made whole again. I think it is Kelly’s acceptance of death that ironically allows not for Kelly’s resurrection, but ultimately for the birth of the new character of John Clark.
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