Review – The Subtle Knife

The Subtle Knife – Philip Pullman

published 1997, 235 pages

 

 

From Amazon.com -

The Subtle Knifeoffers everything we could have wished for, and more. For a start, there’s a young hero–from our world–who is a match for Lyra Silvertongue and whose destiny is every bit as shattering. Like Lyra, Will Parry has spent his childhood playing games. Unlike hers, though, his have been deadly serious. This 12-year-old long ago learned the art of invisibility: if he could erase himself, no one would discover his mother’s increasing instability and separate them.

As the novel opens, Will’s enemies will do anything for information about his missing father, a soldier and Arctic explorer who has been very much airbrushed from the official picture. Now Will must get his mother into safe seclusion and make his way toward Oxford, which may hold the key to John Parry’s disappearance. But en route and on the lam from both the police and his family’s tormentors, he comes upon a cat with more than a mouse on her mind: “She reached out a paw to pat something in the air in front of her, something quite invisible to Will.” What seems to him a patch of everyday Oxford conceals far more: “The cat stepped forward and vanished.” Will, too, scrambles through and into another oddly deserted landscape–one in which children rule and adults (and felines) are very much at risk. Here in this deathly silent city by the sea, he will soon have a dustup with a fierce, flinty little girl: “Her expression was a mixture of the very young–when she first tasted the cola–and a kind of deep, sad wariness.” Soon Will and Lyra (and, of course, her dæmon, Pantalaimon) uneasily embark on a great adventure and head into greater tragedy.

As Pullman moves between his young warriors and the witch Serafina Pekkala, the magnetic, ever-manipulative Mrs. Coulter, and Lee Scoresby and his hare dæmon, Hester, there are clear signs of approaching war and earthly chaos. There are new faces as well. The author introduces Oxford dark-matter researcher Mary Malone; the Latvian witch queen Ruta Skadi, who “had trafficked with spirits, and it showed”; Stanislaus Grumman, a shaman in search of a weapon crucial to the cause of Lord Asriel, Lyra’s father; and a serpentine old man whom Lyra and Pan can’t quite place. Also on hand are the Specters, beings that make cliff-ghasts look like rank amateurs.

Throughout, Pullman is in absolute control of his several worlds, his plot and pace equal to his inspiration. Any number of astonishing scenes–small- and large-scale–will have readers on edge, and many are cause for tears. “You think things have to be possible,” Will demands. “Things have to be true!” It is Philip Pullman’s gift to turn what quotidian minds would term the impossible into a reality that is both heartbreaking and beautiful.

My thoughts -

Another great installment in this highly acclaimed trilogy.  I’m very happy that I’ve exposed myself to these stories because they keep getting better.  The Subtle Knife dives deeper into Lyra’s story, exposing the reader to more characters, more worlds, and more details as to what this series is really about.  I don’t know much else to say about these books since I’m pretty sure most everyone on the planet has read them, but I really am enjoying this series and am looking forward to the third and final book!

Also reviewed by: Charley at Bending Bookshelf.

Review – The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman

From amazon.com -

Some books improve with age–the age of the reader, that is. Such is certainly the case with Philip Pullman’s heroic, at times heart-wrenching novel, The Golden Compass, a story ostensibly for children but one perhaps even better appreciated by adults. The protagonist of this complex fantasy is young Lyra Belacqua, a precocious orphan growing up within the precincts of Oxford University. But it quickly becomes clear that Lyra’s Oxford is not precisely like our own–nor is her world. For one thing, people there each have a personal dæmon, the manifestation of their soul in animal form. For another, hers is a universe in which science, theology, and magic are closely allied:

As for what experimental theology was, Lyra had no more idea than the urchins. She had formed the notion that it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really. Probably the stars had dæmons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them.

Not that Lyra spends much time worrying about it; what she likes best is “clambering over the College roofs with Roger the kitchen boy who was her particular friend, to spit plum stones on the heads of passing Scholars or to hoot like owls outside a window where a tutorial was going on, or racing through the narrow streets, or stealing apples from the market, or waging war.” But Lyra’s carefree existence changes forever when she and her dæmon, Pantalaimon, first prevent an assassination attempt against her uncle, the powerful Lord Asriel, and then overhear a secret discussion about a mysterious entity known as Dust. Soon she and Pan are swept up in a dangerous game involving disappearing children, a beautiful woman with a golden monkey dæmon, a trip to the far north, and a set of allies ranging from “gyptians” to witches to an armor-clad polar bear.

In The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman has written a masterpiece that transcends genre. It is a children’s book that will appeal to adults, a fantasy novel that will charm even the most hardened realist. Best of all, the author doesn’t speak down to his audience, nor does he pull his punches; there is genuine terror in this book, and heartbreak, betrayal, and loss. There is also love, loyalty, and an abiding morality that infuses the story but never overwhelms it. This is one of those rare novels that one wishes would never end. Fortunately, its sequel, The Subtle Knife, will help put off that inevitability for a while longer.

My thoughts -

I know I mentioned before how I really don’t have much experience with fantasy aside from the Harry Potter series (which, by the way, are some of my favorite books of all time).  Having read and loved that series, I’ve always wanted to read more fantasy but simply have never gotten around to it until this point.  I’m thrilled to say that I truly enjoyed beginning the His Dark Materials series and I’m very excited to continue on with it.  Admittedly, it took me a little while to get used to Lyra’s world… there was definitely a learning curve for me; trying to figure out what this dæmon thing is all about, who are all these other creatures, and what is the point of this story in the first place.  But once things started falling into place, the story really took off for me and I lost myself in it.  I don’t know what else to say, really, except that I just really loved this book and am very happy that I have the rest of the series in my possession so that I can get to reading it soon.

9 stars.

Also reviewed by: Raych at books i done read, Darcie at Reading Derby, Vixen’s Daily Reads, Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?, Dewey at The Hidden Side of a Leaf, Care’s Online Book Club, bookchronicle at Adventures in Reading, Biblioaddict, and Charley at Bending Bookshelf. (if I missed you, please let me know!)