The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman

William Blake, The Ancient of Days

(January 29) I loved Book I, was able to coast happily through Book II on that love, but found Book III a bit of a chore to get through. In trying to resolve all the giant questions and epic struggles set up in the first two books, The Amber Spyglass wanders all over the place and, I think, becomes completely incoherent at times.

Also, it goes all 17th and 18th Century on our ass. I saw the Blake allusions even before Pullman came right out and called the God figure “the ancient of days,” and it’s impossible to ignore the homage to Milton at this point (I didn’t see it in the earlier books but “His Dark Materials” left little doubt it was coming).

I’m not a Milton fan, so the grandioseness, artificiality and über-Catholicism of Book III killed my buzz; but there are plain old mechanical problems as well. It’s almost as though Pullman ran out of time and/or space -- he set up such a leisurely pace in Book I that it seems he’s cramming too much half-worked-out material into Books II and III.

I was so disappointed with what happened to Mrs. Coulter. I was also not sure how Lyra, Will and Mary represented Eve, Adam and the Garden of Eden’s serpent, as advertised (and not interested enough to reread and work that out).

On the other hand, I still enjoyed Pullman's imagination and inventions for their own sake. The faux anthropological studies of the mulefa and the Gallivespians, for example, are enchanting.

The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman

(December 28) This is a respectable continuation of The Golden Compass story -- not a disappointing continuation, because Pullman's amazing imagination is so enjoyable, but not a dream-fulfilling continuation either, because now the story is getting a little overcomplicated, and Lyra and her world are no longer prominent (in fact, we are in our world, ho hum).

This book introduces a new character -- a 12-year-old boy, Will -- and I found myself really not wanting to be interested in him since it would be disloyal to Lyra, lol. But Pullman managed to overcome my bias and is successful with Will, I think -- his courage is just as thrilling as Lyra's, and he's his own person, not just a male Lyra. I really liked him, and was entirely captivated with the function and role of the knife.

I began to see here in Book II why Lyra is so appealing in Book I: she has a lot of balls, like a boy, but is still girlish and girly (e.g., in her affection for Pan and her bedazzlement by Mrs. Coulter). Will, in contrast, is tender and conscientious, very touchingly so, I thought, like a girl, and yet there was no doubt he is a boy. There are many satisfying little parallels in the two characters and in the ways the mystery looming around them draws them in, which make The Subtle Knife fun to read.

However, that über-story also starts to take itself very seriously, and wants to be an epic allegory now, rather than the localized little struggle it was in Book I. I find this less compelling. Also, it's hard to watch Lyra fade into a co-star role, sigh.
Michelangelo, David