The Subtle Knife

This post originally published June 29, 2011.

Author: Philip Pullman
Published: 1997
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Series: His Dark Materials #2
288 pages (mass market paperback)
 
This second book of Pullman’s His Dark Materials series was good but somehow seemed to lack the magic that I felt from the first book. It felt very much like what I call an “in-between” book — those books in a series that exist solely to bridge the story from point A to point C.

The Subtle Knife does not begin right where The Golden Compass left off. We are introduced to a new character named Will Parry, who lives in our world (not Lyra’s). After Will accidentally kills a man (though in his defense, the man had been threatening Will and his mother for a long time now), Will manages to completely escape from his world by crawling through a square window in the air, which leads him to the city of Cittagazze. It is there that he meets Lyra Silvertongue, who has also stepped into this strange new world following the events from the end of the first book.

Lyra and Will realize they are from parallel worlds. The alethiometer tells Lyra that she should help Will find his father first, so the two kids work together, becoming friends. When Lyra’s alethiometer is stolen, Will and Lyra confront the thief but are told they won’t get it back unless they want to trade for it. What the thief wants is the subtle knife, a knife whose one side of the blade can cut through any material in the world, and whose other side of the blade can cut windows into other worlds.
Like I already mentioned, this book felt kind of like an in-between book. Don’t get me wrong, I think this book had an overall good plot, but at the end, it did sort of feel as if many things are unresolved still (regardless of the cliffhanger ending). I think the beginning started off really strong and interesting; it’s the latter half of the novel that felt like it was more about journeying and whatnot, and the destination won’t be reached until the third book.

When I read The Golden Compass, I could read it like any other fantasy novel and the anti-organized-religion undertones are so subtle that you won’t even see them there unless you really looked for it. In The Subtle Knife, however, it’s really thrown in your face. I don’t have an issue with this because of the message (I’m not religious, barely spiritual), but I was a little disappointed because I liked the subtlety. When the message is so clear that there’s not much discussion needed to decipher metaphors and whatnot, then it’s kind of not as interesting to read. The book states outright what Dust is and who Lyra represents, or is. See, that kind of stuff would be fun to try to figure out for yourself, but the book just gives it away, which is a little disappointing.

I’m excited to see how all the events in book two are going to tie into the last one and I really want to reunite with Lord Asriel because he’s my favourite character in the series. Since he wasn’t in book two (except mentioned), I really want to find out how his, uh, war plans are coming along and I’m curious as to how the subtle knife will tie into it.

Still, even though I didn’t find book two as interesting as the first, I am still eager to read the third and final book in the series (after all, I’m nearly done with the series). Overall, this book is not as impressionable as the first, but it is still a good read, and obviously, is a must-read if you want to continue onto the third book.

My Rating: 3/5