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

The Golden Compass

This post first published June 11, 2011.

Author: Philip Pullman
Published: 1995
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Series: His Dark Materials #1
351 pages (mass market paperback)
 
I saw the movie for this book about two years ago or so, and I had liked the movie (though I thought the ending was abrupt and unsatisfying), so I had wanted to read the book ever since. As you can see, I didn’t get around to doing that at all, until now, when I just so happened to have seen the book in the library shelves, and it reminded me of how I had wanted to read it before.

The Golden Compass takes place in an alternate world of ours, a world where people’s souls are not within themselves, but are called dæmons and are outside of the body, in the form of an animal. The protagonist is a young girl named Lyra Belacqua, who, upon curiosity one day, hides in a forbidden room in Oxford’s Jordan College and overhears her Uncle Asriel talk about a strange particle called Dust to other scholars. Her uncle asks for the college to fund his studies to go into the North so he may study Dust, which most of his colleagues and other scholars agree to, so off to the North he goes.
Not long after her discovery about this Dust substance, rumors of a people called the Gobblers spring up. The Gobblers are behind the disappearances of children, and when Lyra’s friend Roger is mysteriously gone, Lyra desires to save him. She knows they are being taken to the North, so she finds herself in the company of Mrs. Coultar, who seems to be a scholarly lady, also planning a trip to the North. Unfortunately, Mrs. Coultar turns out to be a part of the Gobblers group herself, a discover that leads Lyra to escaping from her clutches and ending up being accompanied by gyptians, witches and armored bears. Her journey leads her to the Station where she discovers the terrible and cruel things the Gobblers are doing to the missing children, all out of fear of this mysterious Dust.

So, since I’ve already seen the movie (which I know by now is not 100% faithful to the book, but faithful enough), a bit of the magic of discovering this new world and finding out what happens in the plot was taken away from me, simply because I already know what’s going to happen. Nothing I can really do about that there, but at least I am completely in the dark about what happens in the second and third books. Regardless, I really liked this book and I can certainly see why others enjoy it; it’s a beautiful story, definitely one I would consider a modern classic.

The best thing about this book are the fascinating concepts it has. My favourite thing concept is of dæmons. I just fell in love with the idea, of the soul not being kept inside the body, but outside of it as a familiar. I think the idea is just thoroughly original and how nice it would be to have a built-in best friend in your life! I even thought about what kind of dæmon I would have, if I were in this world, and at first I thought I’d have a really cool animal of some sort, like a dolphin or panther, something kind of ‘cool’. But really, when I thought about it, I’d probably have a cat. As in the lame household variety. Hahaha.

I also love the idea of Dust. At first I had no idea what it could possibly be. Granted, even the characters didn’t know, so I wasn’t at a disadvantage or anything. But I know that since this trilogy of books is metaphorical to religion in some way, I figured Dust had to be too. It’s sort of explained at the end (incoming spoilers!!!); the idea of when people grow up, this Dust particle starts sticking to them, thus symbolizing the passage from childhood to adulthood. In other words, losing your innocence and gaining knowledge causes the Dust to stick to them. (End spoilers). Of course, the characters still don’t know exactly what Dust is. What makes it “stick” to people? Why is it invisible? What’s the point of it? Asriel thinks it comes from the another world altogether, and this sets up the second book, I think, considering Asriel went through all that trouble in the book to cross the boundary between his world and the one he could see in the sky. Lyra becomes convinced Dust must be a good thing and also sets out to prove that, before her uncle can accomplish his own goals with Dust.

I know the book has a lot of other messages in it, specifically anti-church ones, but I’m really not going to dive into that jar of cookies (not to mention the fact I really didn’t catch any of it until the very end and had to look up an analysis of the book on Sparknotes to figure it out because to me, the book just seemed like an innocent fantasy adventure for the most part). Anyway, I personally enjoyed this book a lot. I think I would have enjoyed it even more if I hadn’t already foreseen everything that would happen, thanks to the movie version, but still, with knowing the plot ahead of time, I was still pleasantly surprised at times. It’s a very charming story and I think anyone who enjoys fantasy stories would like it.

My Rating: 4/5