The Cleaners - Ken Liu - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Ken Liu

SERIES: Faraway Collection, #4

GENRE: Short Story.

RATING: 3.5 stars

In a Nutshell: The best story of the Faraway collection for me, though this isn’t really saying much. Would have worked far better were it lengthier. Doesn’t work much as a retelling though. Literary fiction readers might enjoy this better.

Story Synopsis:

Gui runs a special cleaning shop where he clear off memory deposits from objects, thereby making their owners feel no pain on touching them. As Gui is memory-insensitive, he doesn’t feel any physical pain while doing his job.

Clara can sense memories to some extent, and hence she wants her objects to be scrubbed clean by Gui. But after a meeting with her sister Beatrice, who is super-sensitive to memories, shows her a memory that change’s Clara’s perception of that event, Clara wonders if she took the right decision in hiring Gui.

The story comes to us in the third person perspectives of Gui, Clara and Beatrice.

This standalone short story is a part of the Faraway series, described on Amazon as “a collection of retold fairy tales that take the happily-ever-after in daring new directions.”

I have long heard of Ken Liu’s astounding imagination in Sci-Fi works, and hence I picked up this little story despite not having great luck with this series. Surprisingly, the story worked decently for me, but not for the reasons it should have.

Officially, this is supposed to be based on ‘The Princess and the Pea’, but to be honest, the link between the two works is minimal. The only common point is that the princess’ super-sensitivity to a pea twenty mattresses below is transposed to the extent of sensitivity humans have to memory deposits on inanimate objects. As such, this story doesn’t work as a fairy tale retelling at all.

However, were you to forget the fact that this is supposed to be a fairy tale retelling, and instead, read it as a sci-fi story that is more character-driven than plot-driven, you have a fair chance of liking it better.

To me, the stand-outs of this tale were:

✨ A triple character perspective, so rare in short stories. The story begins with Gui, goes to Clara, then Beatrice, and then cycles back to Clara and finally Gui. It was an unusual short-fic experience.

✨ The character-driven proceedings, where the entire flow of the narrative is governed by the decisions made by the central trio. Plot-loving readers wont enjoy this aspect as the plot details are relatively vague. But as a lover of literary fiction, I enjoyed this experience.

✨ The central trio are very interesting characters. With their varying levels of sensitivity to memories, they display a wide range of reactions to the memories, making their experiences distinct..

✨ This is the most mature story of the four Faraway stories I read, with the characters behaving realistically than going over the top. It is hence also the only story that doesn’t feel YA.

✨ I enjoyed the concept of memories being retained by objects and hence affecting those who touch the same. So creative! It’s farfetched, of course, but then again, it’s fantasy, so it can go wild in its imagination.

✨ Some interesting aspects raised by the plot – would you erase painful memories or would you rather retain them to learn from them? How would you feel if others could touch your possessions and relive your personal memories?

The story could have done better though. Its tiny length didn’t allow enough page space for a detailed exploration of the characters. The story would have been mind-blowing had it been lengthier and hence allowed enough time for its characters and its creative concept to pack a punch.

The Faraway Collection has five stories. I’ve read four of them, and my journey through the series ends here as the fifth one (Hazel & Grey, the Hansel & Gretel retelling) has too many triggers I am not fond of. Of the four I read, this was the best story for me, followed closely by Gayle Forman’s The Wickeds. The remaining two don’t even deserve a mention.

At the same time, I must stress upon the fact that I forgot to read this as a retelling once the magic of the plot took over. If you are looking for a fairytale-like magical experience, or if you don’t enjoy character-driven tales, this isn’t for you.

I liked it enough, but I do wish it had been a novella so that it could have filled in some of those interesting missing blanks.

This is the fourth standalone story from the Faraway Collection, and is currently available for free to Amazon Prime subscribers.