Leave his dark materials to Milton.
Oct. 7th, 2006 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackofallgeeksSo this morning I finished "The Amber Spyglass", the third and final book in the His Dark Materials series. And I think I've come to a conclusion: I don't like it.
Well, let me explain. I enjoyed the books. I liked reading them, generally. I liked Lyra and Will. In fact, I really liked the first book, "The Golden Compass"; it really set up a fascinating world that was almost-but-not-quite our own, with an interesting conflict and a lot of potential. I kind of liked the second book, though I think it started to... 'lose focus' isn't what I'm looking for, but it's the closest I can get. The third book was alright, but probably embodies most of what I don't like about the series: it didn't make sense.
Pullman sets up a lot in the first book. And he moves on from there in the second. And for most of the third he's still working with the same things. But then something happens. Or doesn't. Going any further, though, involves Spoilers, so they're under the cut. And even at that, it's rather disjointed.
********** SPOILERS **********
OK, so, where should I begin with my complaints? There's a lot Pullman kind of throws out there and doesn't explain. A lot that doesn't make sense and isn't resolved. Like how about the little bit he throws out about Angels who were once human? He only mentions two, Baruch and Metatron. But he doesn't say anything about HOW they got to be angels, or why. Everyone else who dies goes to Hell (or whatever you want to call the land of the dead), and even when they get out of their their 'atoms' scatter to the ends of the universe and become 'everything'. Which is a separate complaint. Pullman reduces everything to atoms, bodies and daemons and ghosts and angels, and in they end they all scatter and re-mingle and join the air and the birds and the grass and the stars in a wonderfully sterile, non-mystical pantheism of physics.
So he introduces these two and then just leaves it. Baruch dies without much of anything being done with it, and Metatron is made to have been human presumably simply for the purpose of making him susceptible to Marissa's wiles. But if angels, as Pullman had expressed, were already covetous of human bodies then this was completely unnecessary. And like Baruch, Metatron just dies. And that's it.
Another bit was the Authority, who was an old demented angel kept 'alive' by being sealed in a crystal coffin. But to what purpose? Pullman says Metatron wanted to keep him around "a bit longer," but he doesn't say why. The Church certainly didn't talk directly to the Authority, so if he was so useless why even have him around? What was the point of having him there? Couldn't Pullman have made his point just by saying that God was dead, and had been for some time? Metatron was a Usurper anyways.
Or maybe this was a point where Pullman had to make good on earlier foreshadowing and didn't know how. The knife was called Godkiller, not that we ever find out why. It was made by man to cut holes between worlds, why call it Godkiller? "If in your travels you come across God, he will be cut." It was a nice name, but in the end you might as well called it Godfree-er, 'cause that's all the use it was. It opened his crystal coffin and let him join the Force.
I actually suspect that Pullman didn't know what he was doing. He said some grand things in the first book, and he followed up on some of them in the second, but the third seemed to be flailing. Take Asriel. What's he say at the end of the first book? He's going to kill Dust. That'd be a great line if it meant anything. But it didn't. At least not after the Second book. See, in the Second Book Asriel was still building an Army to fight The Authority. But when we find him in the third book, he has little interest in ATTACKING, and just seems interested in DEFENDING, so that he can build his Republic. Except that not long after learning this, we find that his great work is for naught, because no one can live in the place he made. All the war-machines, all the plans, all the cutting through worlds is meaningless. And worst of all, he doesn't kill Dust; as Pullman writes it, he's fighting on the SIDE of Dust. He feeds us some line through Marissa about how Asriel must have lied when he said that, and Asriel confirms it, that he just said that so she'd join him. But that's shit because she didn't, and he let her go. He walked out of his world without her. He didn't say, "oh, well, what if I said I was going to HELP Dust? Or ignore it? Maybe golf, do you like golf?" When he said it, Asriel meant it. But Pullman robbed him of that.
And what about Lyra as Eve? That was a great line, too. Very interesting. But how does it play out? She and Will find themselves in a wood and eat apples and kiss. It's all very symbolic, and maps back nicely to the story of Eve we all know. But it doesn't mean anything. They kiss and something magical happens, but we're never told what. The flood of Dust stops, sure, and that's good, but why? What did the two of them do that was any different from every other young couple? Why is what they did special, aside from what happened immediately following it? They fixed the world, but how? Why? And that was it, too. A kiss and an apple. No angels with fiery swords. No serpent -- much as Mary was the one who gave them the apple, she was HARDLY a 'tempter'. No Fall. No Ascent, either. No exile, no redemption, no new beginning to the human race.
The human race wasn't even all that important. In the third book we're introduced to a multitude of other intelligent beings vastly different from humans in all these different worlds. And that's well and fine, but why? What's the point? I submit that the point is Pullman decided to preach to us about diversity and community and acceptance. About how we should all do our part and love each other and recognize that people are people even if they look different from us. And he does preach. Through most of the third book, it seems, Characters are saying things that they shouldn't. They talk about stuff that they shouldn't know because it moves along whatever it is Pullman was trying to say. They speak in broken sentences of "I have to tell you," "no, you can't," "then you already know," "yes, but it's too horrible to say." And then they have long monologues saying in words what Pullman has already been saying in narration. So he's preachy and repetitive.
And unaccountably anti-Christian. I think that's more of a sore spot for me, being Catholic, than it is for some. And that's a fair criticism to make. Still, I submit that I'm not blindly fanatic about my religion, and that I can enjoy an aggressive commentary on the irregularities of what we say we believe. But his unaccountably-hostile bent came to me when Fr. Gomez said that the mulefa's wheels were Satanic. Why would you SAY that? Why would Gomez THINK it? He'd just gotten there, he couldn't know anything about anything, and he's suddenly talking about evangelization and ending the wheels. Why did he say it? Because Pullman had already established the wheels as a good thing, and the bit that gave the mulefa their sentience, their oil, their Dust. And he wanted to spur in us a revulsion to Gomez and what he was and what he represented.
And what of when Serefina is talking to Mary about the Rebel Angels, who fought for open-mindedness and creativity, and The Church -- no the other Angels, not the Authority, not Metatron, but the Church -- that fought to keep minds closed? And how it was so in all worlds everywhere. That the Church was ever and always a stifling force of banality. Yes, the church was the villain in the first book. This was good, I think. And it was kept in the second book, which was also good, as they were the agents of the Authority. But in the third book it's not about experiments in the north, or a war in Heaven, it's just preaching.
********** END SPOILERS **********
In short, Pullman leaves a lot open. He throws things out into the world he's created, some he ignores, some he forgets, some he outright contradicts. By the third book, everything that's said and done seems to be just another conduit through which Pullman philosophizes. More and more through the third book, characters and actions and settings take a secondary position behind Pullman and his own preaching.
And really, that's what it comes down to. I didn't like the third book because it didn't resolve much, and what it resolved it did so poorly. The first two books are good, but without a third they lack meaning. And the third they were given seems to drain and bastardize any meaning they could have had.
Well, let me explain. I enjoyed the books. I liked reading them, generally. I liked Lyra and Will. In fact, I really liked the first book, "The Golden Compass"; it really set up a fascinating world that was almost-but-not-quite our own, with an interesting conflict and a lot of potential. I kind of liked the second book, though I think it started to... 'lose focus' isn't what I'm looking for, but it's the closest I can get. The third book was alright, but probably embodies most of what I don't like about the series: it didn't make sense.
Pullman sets up a lot in the first book. And he moves on from there in the second. And for most of the third he's still working with the same things. But then something happens. Or doesn't. Going any further, though, involves Spoilers, so they're under the cut. And even at that, it's rather disjointed.
OK, so, where should I begin with my complaints? There's a lot Pullman kind of throws out there and doesn't explain. A lot that doesn't make sense and isn't resolved. Like how about the little bit he throws out about Angels who were once human? He only mentions two, Baruch and Metatron. But he doesn't say anything about HOW they got to be angels, or why. Everyone else who dies goes to Hell (or whatever you want to call the land of the dead), and even when they get out of their their 'atoms' scatter to the ends of the universe and become 'everything'. Which is a separate complaint. Pullman reduces everything to atoms, bodies and daemons and ghosts and angels, and in they end they all scatter and re-mingle and join the air and the birds and the grass and the stars in a wonderfully sterile, non-mystical pantheism of physics.
So he introduces these two and then just leaves it. Baruch dies without much of anything being done with it, and Metatron is made to have been human presumably simply for the purpose of making him susceptible to Marissa's wiles. But if angels, as Pullman had expressed, were already covetous of human bodies then this was completely unnecessary. And like Baruch, Metatron just dies. And that's it.
Another bit was the Authority, who was an old demented angel kept 'alive' by being sealed in a crystal coffin. But to what purpose? Pullman says Metatron wanted to keep him around "a bit longer," but he doesn't say why. The Church certainly didn't talk directly to the Authority, so if he was so useless why even have him around? What was the point of having him there? Couldn't Pullman have made his point just by saying that God was dead, and had been for some time? Metatron was a Usurper anyways.
Or maybe this was a point where Pullman had to make good on earlier foreshadowing and didn't know how. The knife was called Godkiller, not that we ever find out why. It was made by man to cut holes between worlds, why call it Godkiller? "If in your travels you come across God, he will be cut." It was a nice name, but in the end you might as well called it Godfree-er, 'cause that's all the use it was. It opened his crystal coffin and let him join the Force.
I actually suspect that Pullman didn't know what he was doing. He said some grand things in the first book, and he followed up on some of them in the second, but the third seemed to be flailing. Take Asriel. What's he say at the end of the first book? He's going to kill Dust. That'd be a great line if it meant anything. But it didn't. At least not after the Second book. See, in the Second Book Asriel was still building an Army to fight The Authority. But when we find him in the third book, he has little interest in ATTACKING, and just seems interested in DEFENDING, so that he can build his Republic. Except that not long after learning this, we find that his great work is for naught, because no one can live in the place he made. All the war-machines, all the plans, all the cutting through worlds is meaningless. And worst of all, he doesn't kill Dust; as Pullman writes it, he's fighting on the SIDE of Dust. He feeds us some line through Marissa about how Asriel must have lied when he said that, and Asriel confirms it, that he just said that so she'd join him. But that's shit because she didn't, and he let her go. He walked out of his world without her. He didn't say, "oh, well, what if I said I was going to HELP Dust? Or ignore it? Maybe golf, do you like golf?" When he said it, Asriel meant it. But Pullman robbed him of that.
And what about Lyra as Eve? That was a great line, too. Very interesting. But how does it play out? She and Will find themselves in a wood and eat apples and kiss. It's all very symbolic, and maps back nicely to the story of Eve we all know. But it doesn't mean anything. They kiss and something magical happens, but we're never told what. The flood of Dust stops, sure, and that's good, but why? What did the two of them do that was any different from every other young couple? Why is what they did special, aside from what happened immediately following it? They fixed the world, but how? Why? And that was it, too. A kiss and an apple. No angels with fiery swords. No serpent -- much as Mary was the one who gave them the apple, she was HARDLY a 'tempter'. No Fall. No Ascent, either. No exile, no redemption, no new beginning to the human race.
The human race wasn't even all that important. In the third book we're introduced to a multitude of other intelligent beings vastly different from humans in all these different worlds. And that's well and fine, but why? What's the point? I submit that the point is Pullman decided to preach to us about diversity and community and acceptance. About how we should all do our part and love each other and recognize that people are people even if they look different from us. And he does preach. Through most of the third book, it seems, Characters are saying things that they shouldn't. They talk about stuff that they shouldn't know because it moves along whatever it is Pullman was trying to say. They speak in broken sentences of "I have to tell you," "no, you can't," "then you already know," "yes, but it's too horrible to say." And then they have long monologues saying in words what Pullman has already been saying in narration. So he's preachy and repetitive.
And unaccountably anti-Christian. I think that's more of a sore spot for me, being Catholic, than it is for some. And that's a fair criticism to make. Still, I submit that I'm not blindly fanatic about my religion, and that I can enjoy an aggressive commentary on the irregularities of what we say we believe. But his unaccountably-hostile bent came to me when Fr. Gomez said that the mulefa's wheels were Satanic. Why would you SAY that? Why would Gomez THINK it? He'd just gotten there, he couldn't know anything about anything, and he's suddenly talking about evangelization and ending the wheels. Why did he say it? Because Pullman had already established the wheels as a good thing, and the bit that gave the mulefa their sentience, their oil, their Dust. And he wanted to spur in us a revulsion to Gomez and what he was and what he represented.
And what of when Serefina is talking to Mary about the Rebel Angels, who fought for open-mindedness and creativity, and The Church -- no the other Angels, not the Authority, not Metatron, but the Church -- that fought to keep minds closed? And how it was so in all worlds everywhere. That the Church was ever and always a stifling force of banality. Yes, the church was the villain in the first book. This was good, I think. And it was kept in the second book, which was also good, as they were the agents of the Authority. But in the third book it's not about experiments in the north, or a war in Heaven, it's just preaching.
In short, Pullman leaves a lot open. He throws things out into the world he's created, some he ignores, some he forgets, some he outright contradicts. By the third book, everything that's said and done seems to be just another conduit through which Pullman philosophizes. More and more through the third book, characters and actions and settings take a secondary position behind Pullman and his own preaching.
And really, that's what it comes down to. I didn't like the third book because it didn't resolve much, and what it resolved it did so poorly. The first two books are good, but without a third they lack meaning. And the third they were given seems to drain and bastardize any meaning they could have had.
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Date: 2006-10-07 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 10:33 pm (UTC)