The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3)
by Philip Pullman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Philip PullmanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-05-27
ISBN: 0440418569
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Yearling
Book Reviews of The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3)
Book Review: A thrilling and thoughtful conclusion to the trilogy
Summary: 5 Stars
At the end of _The Subtle Knife_, Lyra was kidnapped by Mrs. Coulter, who we find at the beginning of _The Amber Spyglass_ has turned against the Church and fled to a remote mountain village where she is keeping her daughter in a drugged sleep in order to "protect" her. Will, accompanied by the angels Baruch and Balthamos, insists on rescuing Lyra before he will take the subtle knife to Lord Asriel. After a harrowing escape from Mrs. Coulter and now accompanied by Lord Asriel's tiny Gallevespian agents, the two determine to travel to the land of the dead to find Will's father and Lyra's friend Roger, which will test their courage and strength of will more than anything they have been through so far. Meanwhile, Mary Malone, the physicist and ex-nun who helped them in the previous book, finds herself in another alternate world, where evolution itself has taken a different turn and a conscious species called mulefa has developed.
In the course of the book we will go with Lyra and Will to the world of the dead, at the entrance of which she will be forced to make the great betrayal foretold by the witches and others; witness the final battle between the forces of Lord Asriel and those of the Authority as well as Lyra's parents' final grand gesture on her behalf; and end up in a quiet field in the world of the mulefa as Lyra and Will make a momentous discovery that sets the history of Dust (and consciousness) on the right path again.
The Amber Spyglass contains many mature and disturbing themes that parents might want to discuss with their children, such as the nature of death, whether the Authority is really God Himself or only some people's warped, twisted idea of God, and the fact that sometimes we must give up what matters most to us in order to live a full life. Pullman doesn't pull any punches or shoehorn his story into a conventional "happy ending," and of course it's hard to imagine any of the greatest romances becoming an everyday life together with screaming kids and arguments about the car. The main ideas that this series communicates to me are: 1) True stories are "nourishing," as No-name the harpy puts it, "true" meaning much more than merely factual; 2) Keeping promises and keeping faith with individuals is more important than "saving the world" - in fact, it may _be_ what saves the world. 3) We must live in the here and now, whether or not we believe, as Pullman does, that there isn't anywhere else. (In Judaism we are told that we will have to account to God after our deaths for the things we didn't enjoy during our lives.)
A major theme of this particular book seems to be cooperation, as time and time again people who start a relationship in mutual distrust come to respect each other and work together for a common good. The society of the mulefa has been accused by some of being like a hippie commune. However, in addition to being a different species which may not have some of the violent impulses that seem to be part of human nature, it could be argued that the fact that they only have one prehensile appendage, a trunk, instead of two hands, and thus need to cooperate in order to do many of the things that we can do alone may have caused nature to select for tolerance and the ability to get along.
I feel that this entire series would be perfect for teenagers who are wrestling with their own doubts about the role of religion in their lives, although it should be pointed out to them that Pullman's almost uniformly negative Church is a fictional one and that most of the best qualities that his characters possess are also valued by most or all religions in their truest forms. I also feel that this book, in particular, can only really be appreciated after at least one rereading, as it is much deeper and more philosophical (to quote another Amazon reviewer) than the first two.
Summary of The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3)
Lyra and Will, the two ordinary children whose extraordinary adventures began in The Golden Compass and continued in The Subtle Knife, are in unspeakable danger. With help from the armored bear Iorek Byrnison and two tiny Gallivespian spies, they must journey to a gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone. All the while, Dr. Mary Malone builds a maagnificent amber spyglass. An assassin hunts her down. And Lord Asriel, with troops of shining angels, fights his mighty rebellion, a battle of strange allies?and shocking sacrifices.As war rages and Dust drains from the sky, the fate of the living?and the dead?finally comes to depend on two children and the simple truth of one simple story. The Amber Spyglass reveals that story, bringing Philip Pullman's His Dar Materials to an astonishing conclusion.
This Yearling paperback edition contains 13 pages of bonus material: the found notes and letters of Mary Malone. It also features chapter-opening artwork by Philip Pullman.
From the very start of its very first scene, The Amber Spyglass will set hearts fluttering and minds racing. All we'll say here is that we immediately discover who captured Lyra at the end of The Subtle Knife, though we've yet to discern whether this individual's intent is good, evil, or somewhere in between. We also learn that Will still possesses the blade that allows him to cut between worlds, and has been joined by two winged companions who are determined to escort him to Lord Asriel's mountain redoubt. The boy, however, has only one goal in mind--to rescue his friend and return to her the alethiometer, an instrument that has revealed so much to her and to readers of The Golden Compass and its follow-up. Within a short time, too, we get to experience the "tingle of the starlight" on Serafina Pekkala's skin as she seeks out a famished Iorek Byrnison and enlists him in Lord Asriel's crusade:
A complex web of thoughts was weaving itself in the bear king's mind, with more strands in it than hunger and satisfaction. There was the memory of the little girl Lyra, whom he had named Silvertongue, and whom he had last seen crossing the fragile snow bridge across a crevasse in his own island of Svalbard. Then there was the agitation among the witches, the rumors of pacts and alliances and war; and then there was the surpassingly strange fact of this new world itself, and the witch's insistence that there were many more such worlds, and that the fate of them all hung somehow on the fate of the child.Meanwhile, two factions of the Church are vying to reach Lyra first. One is even prepared to give a priest "preemptive absolution" should he succeed in committing mortal sin. For these tyrants, killing this girl is no less than "a sacred task."
In the final installment of his trilogy, Philip Pullman has set himself the highest hurdles. He must match its predecessors in terms of sheer action and originality and resolve the enigmas he already created. The good news is that there is no critical bad news--not that The Amber Spyglass doesn't contain standoffs and close calls galore. (Who would have it otherwise?) But Pullman brings his audacious revision of Paradise Lost to a conclusion that is both serene and devastating. In prose that is transparent yet lyrical and 3-D, the author weaves in and out of his principals' thoughts. He also offers up several additional worlds. In one, Dr. Mary Malone is welcomed into an apparently simple society. The environment of the mulefa (again, we'll reveal nothing more) makes them rich in consciousness while their lives possess a slow and stately rhythm. These strange creatures can, however, be very fast on their feet (or on other things entirely) when necessary. Alas, they are on the verge of dying as Dust streams out of their idyllic landscape. Will the Oxford dark-matter researcher see her way to saving them, or does this require our young heroes? And while Mary is puzzling out a cure, Will and Lyra undertake a pilgrimage to a realm devoid of all light and hope, after having been forced into the cruelest of sacrifices--or betrayals.
Throughout his galvanizing epic, Pullman sustains scenes of fierce beauty and tenderness. He also allows us a moment or two of comic respite. At one point, for instance, Lyra's mother bullies a series of ecclesiastical underlings: "The man bowed helplessly and led her away. The guard behind her blew out his cheeks with relief." Needless to say, Mrs. Coulter is as intoxicating and fluid as ever. And can it be that we will come to admire her as she plays out her desperate endgame? In this respect, as in many others, The Amber Spyglass is truly a book of revelations, moving from darkness visible to radiant truth. --Kerry Fried
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