His Dark Materials

Van een ongekende schoonheid en niveau. Telkens ik het boek vastgrijp, wordt ik weer helemaal overspoeld door de warmte die het uitstraalt (oh, ironie: voor een boek dat zich voor een groot deel in het barre noorden afspeelt). Wat mij betreft één van de mooiste fantasy-boeken die ik las. ( )

'She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy?
The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer.
When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and show her how to reach Oxford, and those were powers that were useful, but he might still have been untrustworthy or cowardly. A murderer was a worthy companion. She felt as safe with him as she'd done with Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear.'

THE PLOT

This is the second installment in the His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman. The story of Lyra Belacqua continues in a tropical World called Cittàgazze, where Adults are absent, and the Children fend for themselves. Lyra walked into this World at the end of the first book, after her Uncle, Lord Asriel, opened a gateaway between Worlds.

Lyra meets Will, a boy from a World much like her own, but with many differences. Will stumbled into the World accidentally after running away from some men that were following him. Lyra's alethiometer, the instrument she uses to discover truth, tells her that she must find Will's father, who disappeared from Will's world many years ago.

Lyra and Will seek out his Father together, battling through obstacles and ending up in the middle of a huge war between Mortals, Spirits, Witches and Beasts from different Worlds. They must find a way to get to Will's father and save not only their own Worlds, but the hundreds of Worlds connected.

MY OPINION

So this is the second book in the His Dark Materials Trilogy and it certainly didn't disappoint. The book is action packed from the start, and there's never a dull moment. I've actually made creases in the cover of this book, from gripping it so tight(I've never done that before.)Lyra seems to have met her match when she crosses paths with Will making for an enjoyable read, full of laughs and tears. It's a fantastic sequel to The Northern Lights/The Golden Compass.

THE AUTHOR

Phillip Pullman's books are a delight to read. His characters are written incredibly, and the plot moves at a good pace, without giving away too much too soon, and keeps the reader interested. A Fantastic Author, worthy of high praise. ( )

I couldn't finish this. I got a couple chapters in through the third book before I gave up. I could not bring myself to care about these characters who are universally written in such a way as to manage to prevent the reading from believing the characters are not real in any way. The characters are tropes and stereotypes And symbols without any humanity whatsoever. ( )

I brought this book on my recent vacation to have something to read on the plane and long drives and I was pleasantly surprised by it. I generally like fiction for children (Rowling, Beagle, Lewis, etc.) and I'm glad I read these. The plot is more epic in scope than the Harry Potter franchise but neater as well in only three volumes. The trilogy follows the adventures of a brash schoolgirl from an alternate reality, Lyra Belacqua, and her daemon, Pantalaimon.

Well worth a read to anyone who enjoyed Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the like. Read it before the movie hits in December 2007. ( )

I love Paradise Lost. If poems were people, then Paradise Lost would be my girlfriend. Actually it'd be about 350 years old, so presumably very dead, and hence not my girlfriend. But I'd have a kind of histo-crush on it nonetheless. So much do I love Paradise Lost that my first novel was a re-imagining of Milton's epic, set in the modern day. There were people and angels and all manner of other beasties all living in a second version of Earth. By some artifice people could travel back to the original version of Earth, albeit they couldn't really interact with it or stay there for very long.

Well, I say that was my first novel, it wasn't actually published. And when I say it wasn't published I mean it wasn't finished. Actually “never started” might be a more accurate way of putting it. But hey, if I'd ever written a novel, that probably would have been it. Luckily I didn't write it, since it turns out I would've been unknowingly plagiarising Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, itself a modern day version of Paradise Lost full to the brim with curious creatures and parallel worlds.

Although published as three separate works, His Dark Materials isn't so much a trilogy as it is a really long book that separates fairly naturally into three parts. This beginning-middle-end divide usually translates as a divide into interesting-boring-exciting. Or more concisely, the middle usually sucks.

Here I found the central section of the book my favourite part. The opening, Northern Lights is interesting and has some fun characters, but looking back, very little happens in its 350 pages. In contrast, the shorter second part, The Subtle Knife, is bursting with new characters, neat developments, and a frenzy of activity. Things slow down again for the final part, The Amber Spyglass. Here, despite the book's biggest events taking place, things feel somehow more low key. I was actually reminded of the premise of the first Star Wars film: events are transpiring on a galactic scale, yet the story is told from the perspective of two lowly droids. If that had carried on into the rest of the Star Wars trilogy then the effect might have been something like The Amber Spyglass. It works, in a fashion, but does mean the series ends with some slightly cheap-feeling heart string-tugging rather than with the splendour that the novel's vast events seem to call for.

All in all it's a solid and enjoyable story, and the Everyman's Library omnibus edition features a cute addition: “Lantern Slides” sections after each of the three parts giving little snatches that Pullman wrote but never incorporated into the text proper, giving extra little titbits about the plot and characters. ( )