strange and random happenstance

La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: October 19th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Malcolm Polstead is pretty content with his life. With his faithful daemon Asta at his side he helps his parents run their establishment, the Trout Inn, located in Godstow. The best part about the Trout is all the academics that frequent the pub due to it's proximity to Oxford. Malcolm is a bright lad and his school leaves something to be desired but he's able to fill in the gaps in his education through the conversations that swirl through the pub. He also benefits greatly from the Abbey located directly across the Thames. The nuns look on Malcolm as one of their greatest friends, whether he's helping Sister Fenella in the kitchen or Mr. Taphouse in the shed. All his free time is spent in his little canoe, La Belle Sauvage, traveling on the Thames. It's a life of little worries, with the dishwasher Alice Parslow being the only throne in his side. Though little does Malcolm know that everything is about to change when three distinguished gentlemen arrive at the Trout one night and question him about the Abbey. Soon there are rumors swirling that the nuns are caring for a baby of great importance. Malcolm quickly learns the truth, they are indeed protecting a young baby girl, Lyra Belacqua, and it's a matter of an instant for him to realize that he will protect her with his own life if it came to that. Being at Lyra's side means Malcolm has unwittingly become a focal point for various organizations and their needs, both nefarious and otherwise. The one he chooses to ally himself with, due to a horrific incident he witnessed, is called Oakley Street and his contact is Hannah Relf, a member of the research group studying the alethiometer. Malcolm's a valuable asset and his information, particularly concerning a disturbed man with a three legged hyena daemon, are very important. Yet soon a cataclysmic event will prove Malcolm's love for Lyra and his true worth to Oakley Street, if only he can outrun the laughs of that hyena.

La Belle Sauvage is a rare book in that not only did it meet my expectations it exceeded them. Reading this book has actually made me more excited for the rest of the series not less. I literally don't know how I'm going to handle the wait until The Secret Commonwealth which is hopefully coming out next year, not next week like I wish it was. Yes, it's not perfect, the cataclysmic and biblical flood goes on too long, the ending is abrupt with a lot of new concepts introduced but not yet fully explored, but these are pacing issues similar to His Dark Materials in that Pullman views the three volumes of each series as just one of three sections of a single book. In simple parlance, a book in three parts. A book in three parts that have their endings randomly decided by the length and by the arc of each section. Yet almost all problems that I have can be glossed over by the wonder that is Malcolm Polstead. There are many characters in the world I love, but there are few that I feel an instant connection with and have every fiber in my being devoted to protecting them. One such character in recent years was Neville Longbottom. Neville is just so vulnerable and sweet and had such a tragic backstory that if anything had happened to him I would have rioted. Malcolm is similar but in an entirely different way. He's gregarious and competent and smart and just loves the world and I want to shelter him from the harsh realities that are to come, much like Hannah Relf with regard to Oakley Street, but at the same time I know he can take the world on. If I had a kid I would love for him to be like Malcolm, he's just the sweetest most wonderful kid ever. I see him as a miniature Nick Frost, all 4' 6" of him just sauntering into the pub and going up to the elderly patrons and slipping into their conversations like he'd been doing it for fifty years and he knows all about what it's like to have lumbago. There's so much I want and hope for him, but even if it all comes to nought he'd run the best pub in the world if that's what he fell back on.

Malcolm's goodness and humanity is balanced by a rather odious organization that forms at his school. Through the Consistorial Court of Discipline, an arm of the church, a league is formed, The League of St. Alexander. This league's job in all schools is to inform on people in honor of St. Alexander who turned in his own parents for worshiping false idols. Teachers, parents, friends, neighbors, anyone is in danger from this group if these children decide they aren't loyal to the church. The children who join quickly become the power structure in Malcolm's school with the headmaster being ousted for trying to dismiss the league. Many teachers soon vanish as they are supposedly being "reeducated" in the ways of the church. Every lesson must start with a prayer, or else that teacher faces removal. Malcolm's school becomes a haven for fear and hate and while I'm sure Pullman had been planning this book for years and taking things from the historical context of the church one can't help feel that it's oddly prescient. They are like little Hitler Youths where the zealotry brings out the worst in everyone. Living in a country where hate, fear, racism, bigotry, and sexism, are all alive and well and spouted by those in charge, to have a league indoctrinating this in those who will one day lead? It makes me shudder. Really, think how terrifying this is, children can be vicious and merciless and they can make an accusation against anyone and have adults believe them and applaud them. Their bad behaviour is being rewarded! The scores they can settle all because they have righteousness on their side? The fear and hate they can spew because they have a little enamel badge on their lapels!?! I want to hope that this isn't the future we're building here, but more and more it looks like it is.

Though these terrifying thoughts, though they need to be processed and dwelt on, just added another level to the book while not taking away my enjoyment. What truly gripped my attention was all the spycraft. THIS is what I expected Tinker, Tailer, Solider, Spy to be! La Belle Sauvage is like Oxford academia meets Bletchley Park and I loved every single second of it. And, in fact, so many academicians were involved in the world wars and the cold war that this makes total sense. Yet while things like Oakley Street passing messages in acorns made me wildly giddy, the true success of the spycraft here is that we focus on two characters that are new to the game. There's the higher ups, the lords and ladies, but it's the lowly reader of the alethiometer Hannah Relf and her naivete and her relationship with Malcolm as a sort of den mother that make me just love this story. Firstly there's just cute little things like Hannah hating crosswords, which figured prominently in the placing of code-breakers at Bletchley Park and were favorites of the famous Oxford resident, Inspector Morse. Or the books Malcolm borrows from Hannah, and for some reason here Agatha Christie being in all universes makes sense whereas I've had issues with things from our world being in Lyra's world previously. Perhaps because it felt more grounded in the world of Oxford than the land of the dead... But the book once again goes to the bigger issues: how do you know you're on the right side? Hannah has been working for years for Oakley Street without really questioning who they were or why she was doing it, only that she trusted the man who approached her. When she brings Malcolm in it's then she starts to go, "hang on a minute, am I working for the good guys?" In this world basically anyone working against the church is good because the church wants to propagate ignorance and indoctrination, so Hannah is on the right side. But just the fact that she questions them, much like Malcolm questioned The League of St. Alexander shows that they are on the side of knowledge. They do not blindly follow.

With having such weighty issues as false faith, hate culture, and subversion, I find it odd that once again Pullman sidesteps some fairly important sexual issues. Again, I don't know if this is because of his audience or what, but I feel like obliquely talking about it is doing more harm than good. The disturbed man with the three legged hyena daemon, Bonneville, believes he is Lyra's father. He had also just finished serving time for a sexual offense in which Mrs. Coulter was the witness for the prosecution. The only way that he could believe he's Lyra's father, despite Malcolm's insistence on Bonneville being deluded, is if Bonneville had been intimate with Mrs. Coulter. Either they were in a consensual relationship, much like Bonneville and one of the younger nuns, and Mrs. Coulter decided to punish him for some reason and get him sent off to jail which I wouldn't put past her, or, and this is my belief, he raped Mrs. Coulter and assumed the pregnancy was from the rape and not from Lord Asriel's relationship with her. Whatever way this actually played out I think skirting the issue does damage to the story in not explicitly saying that rape is bad. This could have been, and how I hate myself for using this phrase, a teaching movement. Rape is bad. Period. Later in the book when Alice and Malcolm are attacked by Bonneville at the mausoleum it is hinted at by the blood on her legs that Alice is Bonneville's latest victim. But again, it's not spelled out. There seems to be this barrier that Pullman has set up that IF he were to state these things baldly then childhood innocence would be lost. But hinting at it is far worse. State it. Remember it. Then let the story continue with this knowledge firmly in place. But then again, Pullman casually drops using Malcolm as bait for a pedophile for the benefit of Oakley Street and the only one who objects to that is Hannah. So maybe there's some issues that Pullman needs to address in himself with regards to what is and isn't acceptable even in a fictional universe.

As I previously stated there was a lot thrown at us readers in the last chapters of the book, lots of supernatural fairy tale aspects with otherworldly beings that are not in the least handled. Of course, seeing as the gyptians refer to these phenomena as "The Secret Commonwealth" and that's the title of the second book I'm not too concerned about getting my answers eventually... but there is ONE thing that I wondered throughout La Belle Sauvage and have been wondering ever since I first read The Golden Compass and hope that the answer is near at hand. Lord Asriel has some "otherworldly gifts" as his manservant told Lyra on Svalbard. Whatever he needs, be it beautiful glass windows or a child to sacrifice, he sets his mind on it and it appears. Now Malcolm has a strange phenomenon happen to him, an aura in his eye, which he mentions to Hannah. Of course, he adorably mishears it and calls it his aurora. But the first time it happens is the night he meets Lord Asriel and helps him to see Lyra at the Abbey and then gives him his canoe. Later it happens again when he looks at the card Lord Asriel left for Malcolm in the canoe and it sways Malcolm to take Lyra to her father than just back to the nuns. Again it happens when Alice and him have lost Lyra and they see the place she is being kept high on a hill. Could Asriel be guiding Malcolm to help him protect Lyra and reunite them and this aurora is the signal? We've never seen what Asriel's will looks like from the one it's being acted on. Could it be a simple corona of light in the eye? Could it have origins with the fairies? Or could this be a gift of Lyra's... it is seen that she is a bit of a fairy child. Well, only time and Philip Pullman's next book can answers these questions. So I will stew on them until the next book. And no, I'm not going to stew patiently.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Different Kind of P and P, Dust, Fairies, Hannah Relf, Hitler, La Belle Sauvage, Lyra Belacqua, Malcolm Polstead, Neville Longbottom, Oxford, Philip Pullman, Rape, The Book of Dust, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy

La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: October 19th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Malcolm Polstead is pretty content with his life. With his faithful daemon Asta at his side he helps his parents run their establishment, the Trout Inn, located in Godstow. The best part about the Trout is all the academics that frequent the pub due to it's proximity to Oxford. Malcolm is a bright lad and his school leaves something to be desired but he's able to fill in the gaps in his education through the conversations that swirl through the pub. He also benefits greatly from the Abbey located directly across the Thames. The nuns look on Malcolm as one of their greatest friends, whether he's helping Sister Fenella in the kitchen or Mr. Taphouse in the shed. All his free time is spent in his little canoe, La Belle Sauvage, traveling on the Thames. It's a life of little worries, with the dishwasher Alice Parslow being the only throne in his side. Though little does Malcolm know that everything is about to change when three distinguished gentlemen arrive at the Trout one night and question him about the Abbey. Soon there are rumors swirling that the nuns are caring for a baby of great importance. Malcolm quickly learns the truth, they are indeed protecting a young baby girl, Lyra Belacqua, and it's a matter of an instant for him to realize that he will protect her with his own life if it came to that. Being at Lyra's side means Malcolm has unwittingly become a focal point for various organizations and their needs, both nefarious and otherwise. The one he chooses to ally himself with, due to a horrific incident he witnessed, is called Oakley Street and his contact is Hannah Relf, a member of the research group studying the alethiometer. Malcolm's a valuable asset and his information, particularly concerning a disturbed man with a three legged hyena daemon, are very important. Yet soon a cataclysmic event will prove Malcolm's love for Lyra and his true worth to Oakley Street, if only he can outrun the laughs of that hyena.

La Belle Sauvage is a rare book in that not only did it meet my expectations it exceeded them. Reading this book has actually made me more excited for the rest of the series not less. I literally don't know how I'm going to handle the wait until The Secret Commonwealth which is hopefully coming out next year, not next week like I wish it was. Yes, it's not perfect, the cataclysmic and biblical flood goes on too long, the ending is abrupt with a lot of new concepts introduced but not yet fully explored, but these are pacing issues similar to His Dark Materials in that Pullman views the three volumes of each series as just one of three sections of a single book. In simple parlance, a book in three parts. A book in three parts that have their endings randomly decided by the length and by the arc of each section. Yet almost all problems that I have can be glossed over by the wonder that is Malcolm Polstead. There are many characters in the world I love, but there are few that I feel an instant connection with and have every fiber in my being devoted to protecting them. One such character in recent years was Neville Longbottom. Neville is just so vulnerable and sweet and had such a tragic backstory that if anything had happened to him I would have rioted. Malcolm is similar but in an entirely different way. He's gregarious and competent and smart and just loves the world and I want to shelter him from the harsh realities that are to come, much like Hannah Relf with regard to Oakley Street, but at the same time I know he can take the world on. If I had a kid I would love for him to be like Malcolm, he's just the sweetest most wonderful kid ever. I see him as a miniature Nick Frost, all 4' 6" of him just sauntering into the pub and going up to the elderly patrons and slipping into their conversations like he'd been doing it for fifty years and he knows all about what it's like to have lumbago. There's so much I want and hope for him, but even if it all comes to nought he'd run the best pub in the world if that's what he fell back on.

Malcolm's goodness and humanity is balanced by a rather odious organization that forms at his school. Through the Consistorial Court of Discipline, an arm of the church, a league is formed, The League of St. Alexander. This league's job in all schools is to inform on people in honor of St. Alexander who turned in his own parents for worshiping false idols. Teachers, parents, friends, neighbors, anyone is in danger from this group if these children decide they aren't loyal to the church. The children who join quickly become the power structure in Malcolm's school with the headmaster being ousted for trying to dismiss the league. Many teachers soon vanish as they are supposedly being "reeducated" in the ways of the church. Every lesson must start with a prayer, or else that teacher faces removal. Malcolm's school becomes a haven for fear and hate and while I'm sure Pullman had been planning this book for years and taking things from the historical context of the church one can't help feel that it's oddly prescient. They are like little Hitler Youths where the zealotry brings out the worst in everyone. Living in a country where hate, fear, racism, bigotry, and sexism, are all alive and well and spouted by those in charge, to have a league indoctrinating this in those who will one day lead? It makes me shudder. Really, think how terrifying this is, children can be vicious and merciless and they can make an accusation against anyone and have adults believe them and applaud them. Their bad behaviour is being rewarded! The scores they can settle all because they have righteousness on their side? The fear and hate they can spew because they have a little enamel badge on their lapels!?! I want to hope that this isn't the future we're building here, but more and more it looks like it is.

Though these terrifying thoughts, though they need to be processed and dwelt on, just added another level to the book while not taking away my enjoyment. What truly gripped my attention was all the spycraft. THIS is what I expected Tinker, Tailer, Solider, Spy to be! La Belle Sauvage is like Oxford academia meets Bletchley Park and I loved every single second of it. And, in fact, so many academicians were involved in the world wars and the cold war that this makes total sense. Yet while things like Oakley Street passing messages in acorns made me wildly giddy, the true success of the spycraft here is that we focus on two characters that are new to the game. There's the higher ups, the lords and ladies, but it's the lowly reader of the alethiometer Hannah Relf and her naivete and her relationship with Malcolm as a sort of den mother that make me just love this story. Firstly there's just cute little things like Hannah hating crosswords, which figured prominently in the placing of code-breakers at Bletchley Park and were favorites of the famous Oxford resident, Inspector Morse. Or the books Malcolm borrows from Hannah, and for some reason here Agatha Christie being in all universes makes sense whereas I've had issues with things from our world being in Lyra's world previously. Perhaps because it felt more grounded in the world of Oxford than the land of the dead... But the book once again goes to the bigger issues: how do you know you're on the right side? Hannah has been working for years for Oakley Street without really questioning who they were or why she was doing it, only that she trusted the man who approached her. When she brings Malcolm in it's then she starts to go, "hang on a minute, am I working for the good guys?" In this world basically anyone working against the church is good because the church wants to propagate ignorance and indoctrination, so Hannah is on the right side. But just the fact that she questions them, much like Malcolm questioned The League of St. Alexander shows that they are on the side of knowledge. They do not blindly follow.

With having such weighty issues as false faith, hate culture, and subversion, I find it odd that once again Pullman sidesteps some fairly important sexual issues. Again, I don't know if this is because of his audience or what, but I feel like obliquely talking about it is doing more harm than good. The disturbed man with the three legged hyena daemon, Bonneville, believes he is Lyra's father. He had also just finished serving time for a sexual offense in which Mrs. Coulter was the witness for the prosecution. The only way that he could believe he's Lyra's father, despite Malcolm's insistence on Bonneville being deluded, is if Bonneville had been intimate with Mrs. Coulter. Either they were in a consensual relationship, much like Bonneville and one of the younger nuns, and Mrs. Coulter decided to punish him for some reason and get him sent off to jail which I wouldn't put past her, or, and this is my belief, he raped Mrs. Coulter and assumed the pregnancy was from the rape and not from Lord Asriel's relationship with her. Whatever way this actually played out I think skirting the issue does damage to the story in not explicitly saying that rape is bad. This could have been, and how I hate myself for using this phrase, a teaching movement. Rape is bad. Period. Later in the book when Alice and Malcolm are attacked by Bonneville at the mausoleum it is hinted at by the blood on her legs that Alice is Bonneville's latest victim. But again, it's not spelled out. There seems to be this barrier that Pullman has set up that IF he were to state these things baldly then childhood innocence would be lost. But hinting at it is far worse. State it. Remember it. Then let the story continue with this knowledge firmly in place. But then again, Pullman casually drops using Malcolm as bait for a pedophile for the benefit of Oakley Street and the only one who objects to that is Hannah. So maybe there's some issues that Pullman needs to address in himself with regards to what is and isn't acceptable even in a fictional universe.

As I previously stated there was a lot thrown at us readers in the last chapters of the book, lots of supernatural fairy tale aspects with otherworldly beings that are not in the least handled. Of course, seeing as the gyptians refer to these phenomena as "The Secret Commonwealth" and that's the title of the second book I'm not too concerned about getting my answers eventually... but there is ONE thing that I wondered throughout La Belle Sauvage and have been wondering ever since I first read The Golden Compass and hope that the answer is near at hand. Lord Asriel has some "otherworldly gifts" as his manservant told Lyra on Svalbard. Whatever he needs, be it beautiful glass windows or a child to sacrifice, he sets his mind on it and it appears. Now Malcolm has a strange phenomenon happen to him, an aura in his eye, which he mentions to Hannah. Of course, he adorably mishears it and calls it his aurora. But the first time it happens is the night he meets Lord Asriel and helps him to see Lyra at the Abbey and then gives him his canoe. Later it happens again when he looks at the card Lord Asriel left for Malcolm in the canoe and it sways Malcolm to take Lyra to her father than just back to the nuns. Again it happens when Alice and him have lost Lyra and they see the place she is being kept high on a hill. Could Asriel be guiding Malcolm to help him protect Lyra and reunite them and this aurora is the signal? We've never seen what Asriel's will looks like from the one it's being acted on. Could it be a simple corona of light in the eye? Could it have origins with the fairies? Or could this be a gift of Lyra's... it is seen that she is a bit of a fairy child. Well, only time and Philip Pullman's next book can answers these questions. So I will stew on them until the next book. And no, I'm not going to stew patiently.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Different Kind of P and P, Dust, Fairies, Hannah Relf, Hitler, La Belle Sauvage, Lyra Belacqua, Malcolm Polstead, Neville Longbottom, Oxford, Philip Pullman, Rape, The Book of Dust, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy

Lyra's Oxford by Philip Pullman
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: October 28th, 2003
Format: Hardcover, 64 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Lyra is in her favorite place in the world, high on the rooftops of Jordan College. It's been a few years since her journey with Will and she's settled into the academic life at St. Sophia's College and she's diligently studying when there's a ruckus among the birds. Pantalaimon and her quickly see the cause, the birds are attacking a witch's daemon. They rescue the daemon and sneak him back to their room to find out what's going on. The daemon, Ragi, was sent to Lyra to ask for help. His witch, Yelena Pazhets, has a wasting disease that is ravaging the witches and is rare in that it doesn't effect their daemons. There is a cure available from an alchemist in Jericho and Ragi needs Lyra's help to find this Sebastian Makepeace. Lyra agrees to help him later after her school commitments are done. That night as they sneak through the streets of Oxford her and Pan start to question Ragi's story. There's something about it that seems off. Yet Lyra isn't faint of heart. If they ARE walking into a trap then at least they will soon know the whole story. That story is dark and involves the love of a witch and the death of a son in the cause that Lord Asriel championed. Will Lyra have to pay for the sins of the father or will she be able to pull off an improbable victory once again?

Lyra's Oxford wasn't written just to wallow in the nostalgia of seeing a beloved character again. This isn't like every returning television series out there that is more of the same, it's like the uniqueness of the return of Twin Peaks. Yes, there's nostalgia, but this is an entirely new story, a new chapter, and while Lyra isn't dealing with tulpas she has dark forces to face and daemons to overcome. There are repercussions from what she and Will did, but more so just from the fact that her father wagged a war and people died because of his beliefs and not everyone is happy about that. Lord Asriel is dead and so can not face justice, therefore Lyra must pay. I think this book is what sparked the hope in Philip Pullman's readers that Lyra's story wasn't over because here, with this vengeful witch, we see that the fallout from the war against the Authority is still just beginning. As a reader my appetite was whetted for more. This taste just wasn't enough! What else happened? What else came after? I don't just want to see this more confident Lyra with this more settled Pan, I want to see the Magisterium fall, I want to see what happened to everyone. And like David Lynch, Pullman is a genius in that here he gives us just a little taste and then, with La Belle Sauvage, he goes back, further than his previous start and shows us the story we knew in an entirely new light. We don't necessarily get what we want or what we expected but what we needed.

And the one thing we needed to see here was a bit of Lyra not only coming into her own but coming home. Oxford and Jordan College have always been where Lyra belonged, yet when she takes off with Mrs. Coulter and later embarks on her epic journey with Will she doesn't look back. Yet it's the stories of her life in Oxford that pacify the harpies. It's her stories that give the ghosts in the land of the dead hope again. Therefore Lyra being in Oxford was a must. Yet there's all these questions, foremost of which is, after all her adventures would Oxford still feel like home? At the end of The Amber Spyglass we get a little hint that Lyra's going to settle back into life and find a purpose with Hannah Relf of St. Sophia's College who is an expect in the alethiometer but it's so much better to see that firsthand. And here we see a confident and studious Lyra, and that makes my heart glad. But what I really love about this little book is that it's not just that Lyra belongs in Oxford it's that Oxford knows this and protects and takes care of her. Those birds that were attacking the witch's daemon? They were trying to protect Lyra! Again and again this book gives us big and small signs that not only did the city of Oxford welcome Lyra back with open arms but that their number one goal is to protect her. Oxford really is Lyra's and I hope that with the coming books I get to visit it again and again in the years to come.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Different Kind of P and P, Alchemist, Daemons, David Lynch, Hannah Relf, His Dark Materials, Jericho, Jordan College, Lyra Belacqua, Lyra's Oxford, Oxford, Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass, Twin Peaks, Witches

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: October 10th, 2000
Format: Hardcover, 518 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

The final war with the Authority has come. The sides have been drawn. Ignorance and control or knowledge and freedom. That which was known as God was really just taking credit for creating that which was in existence long before him. Now his second in command is power hungry and wants absolute control over all worlds. A modern inquisition, which Lord Asriel will fight until his dying breath. Yet it's the breath of his daughter that is needed. She needs to live. She needs to fulfill the prophecy that she will put an end to death and become the new Eve. This might prove rather tricky as the Magisterium has sent a priest to kill her and her own mother is currently holding her captive in a drug-induced sleep in a Himalayan cave. It is up to Will, Lyra's staunch friend, to pull himself together after seeing the father he spent his life searching for killed in front of him by a witch and then have a pair of angels appear to direct the bearer of the subtle knife to Lord Asriel. But Will is up to the challenge and along the way to Lyra meets one of her old allies, the armoured bear, Iorek Byrnison, who has fled the arctic as the opening between worlds Lord Asriel has created has destroyed his icy fortress of Svalbard. They find Lyra in the nick of time, taking her out from under the hands of the Magisterium and Lord Asriel. While Lyra was drugged she dreamt of her friend Roger in the land of the dead and upon waking knows what she and Will must do. If his knife can open a window into any world, surly that includes the land of the dead. They will journey there with two new companions, the Gallivespian, the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salmakia who ride upon dragonfly steeds, and speak to Roger. Will might even get a chance to talk to his father. After that? Well, who knows how their journey will effect the war... but effect it it will, especially once they are reunited with their friend Mary.

Well, the "end" is here. I say "end" in quotes because as we know now it's not really the end but back in 2000 it was that. The big battle, the Authority toppled, the end and the beginning all in one. Pullman could have concentrated on the war, made an unsubstantial confection of explosions worthy of the big screen sometime in the summer months with angels fighting angels but instead he decided to focus on his characters. Lyra and Will take center stage, as well as new favorites, and instead of a grinding depiction of war we're given something bigger. A journey of self discovery and redemption and hope while the war just happens to be going on off to the side. Am I the only one to say "thank god" only to realize that Lord Asriel would totally disapprove that I, as a thinking person, am giving thanks to an organization that thrives on ignorance and he made a holy war to topple? While The Golden Compass is Lyra's story and The Subtle Knife is Will's story, The Amber Spyglass is about their journey towards not just growing up, but the knowledge of what it is to love. They are the Adam and Eve of this story and as such they must taste the fruit of knowledge offered up by Mary and basically reboot the world. The problem in this though is the vagueness that Pullman uses when describing their love. I can't tell if it's because he's trying to write around it because this was intended for a younger audience, but is their love more than love? Are they sneaking off into the savanna for some hanky panky? He's embracing the ellipses, more than once I might add, and after this long of a journey with these characters I NEED to know if just the knowledge of love was enough to bring about the second fall or if Lyra and Will actually had sex.

As for those we know had sex... let's look to Lyra's parents, Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, I'm sorry, she's too scary to ever to refer to her casually by her first name. SO much of this series is dealing with parental issues. A lot of that is to do with the fact that as we grow up we have our parents to look to as to what we will become and this either is something we embrace or something we buck. But there's no getting around the fact that Lyra's parents are horrible parents and this is the crux of the series. Lyra is drawn into their world and their war. She is at times a pawn but usually THE major player in all of it. But her parents aren't static, they change over time until they make the ultimate sacrifice for Lyra and one is believable and the other isn't plausible in the least. Lord Asriel's journey and his faith in Lyra make sense. He saw her grow up, pretending to be her uncle, and he is willing to die to protect Lyra because he knows that his daughter will end the war he has wagged. His sacrifice at the end makes sense. He dies taking down the angel in power while also giving Lyra time to escape and fulfill her destiny. But Mrs. Coulter. I just don't get her. When she shows up in Oxford and swoops Lyra away to be a part of her world it's almost like Lyra is a doll she's picked up to dress and play with. Yes, she does save her from intercision at Bolvanger, and she saves her again from the church to hide her away in a dank cave in the Himalayas, but why? She claims it's because her grinchian heart has grown three sizes because of her daughter, but I don't buy it. They say every mother has this overriding instinct to protect their child and lavish it with love, but that's not true. Just look at the world around us, just look at this story. I don't buy that Mrs. Coulter would sacrifice herself for Lyra. For her own purposes, yes, but for her daughter? No way.

Yet I don't have as many issues with Mrs. Coulter as I have with the Mulefa. Those loving elephant faced, diamond skeletoned people whom Mary spends all her narrative with freak me out. But to be fair, it's not in their nature, it's in their wheels. Father Gomez the killer priest was so right when he said that their use of wheels was evil, and yes, I know I'm agreeing with an evil assassin, but seriously, wheels! Yes, I know, technically it's ingenious evolution, but the truth is me and wheeled creatures have a dark history, one which makes me hate them all. Are there things that you saw as a child that just ingrained themselves so deeply in you that they make up a substantial part of your nightmares and neuroses? Not the standard teeth falling out nightmare that so many of us suffer, but a hate of zombies from seeing a certain movie too young. Or a fear of elevators because of what the hell was in outer space when Charlie and Willy Wonka stepped out of the glass elevator (and yes, I cop to this one). Well, when I was very young I stumbled on the comic adaptation of Return to Oz. If you haven't seen Return to Oz, well, firstly you should, but secondly, it's a really dark re-imagining of Oz and the second and third books in the series by L. Frank Baum. There's shock treatment and a lady with removable heads. So while the shock treatment just gave me interesting knowledge, and the lady with removable heads made me slightly freaked, there was one part of the movie that terrified me: The Wheelers. Forget flying monkeys, these minions of the witch Mombi are "people" with wheels for hands and hatred in their hearts and they will hunt you down. Therefore I can not condone these Mulefa, they are in essence that world's Wheelers! BEWARE THE WHEELERS!

OK, no more Wheeler talk, it's near Halloween, this movie is bound to be airing and the nightmares will return. Let's discuss a pet peeve of mine; quotes at the start of chapters, or even at the start of a book. I know for a lot of authors that they have a special meaning, that perhaps this certain line that they have included inspired them or sheds meaning on their writing or captures the essence of whatever is to come like some cryptic clue, but can I just ask all you writers out there to stop. If it's a clue or whatever it's annoying because after reading the chapter you have to go back and re-read it and see if you got it and if you didn't you just end up feeling really stupid. But most of the time, it just comes off as pretentious: "Yes, I have a Shakespeare quote because I've read all Shakespeare and know more than you, ha ha." "What, this obscure poet, you've never heard of them? How can you even live with yourself?" "Don't you just feel that this line wouldn't get it's meaning fully across without the weird spelling of the words and all that is implied by it's antiquity." So IF you're one of these authors, just know, THIS is what's going through my head and makes me hate you just a little bit. Or, if I'm honest, quite a lot occasionally. Here though, besides making me hate Pullman a little, because yes, I can see these quotes at the beginning of each chapter do reflect the world he's created and inspired him so I can't completely hate them though I reserve the full right to hate the tiny ass font they were set in, I can hate them for a logical reason... These quotes are all from authors from our world. Yeah, I agree, quotes from another world would be weird, but then again it might work. Why might it work? Because it wouldn't be grounding The Amber Spyglass so completely in Will's world. Like 10 pages in the whole book take place in that world yet each and every quote comes from there? Bad move Pullman. Bad move. You are tearing down the worlds you built and I don't even know if you realize it.

Though for all my nitpicking what I think Pullman got SO right is the new definition of the Kingdom of Heaven. Lyra and Will are told that each world has to build their own Heaven, which means that it's about cherishing and caring for the world and it's people because you're building the Kingdom with each act, with each thing you put back into the world. Which makes Will and Lyra's final separation into their own worlds make sense. Yes, it may pain them, but they are each such extraordinary people that think of what they can accomplish and build in each of their worlds? Their journey and their sacrifice create a new start, a new chance to fix the problems they see all around that have been caused by three hundred years of damage from the subtle knife and millennia of damage from the Authority. It's not just the humanitarian nature of this that so resonates with me, it's that when I think of heaven I don't think of some weird ethereal place I think of the world around me. Hence, if there is a heaven it would be here on earth. The best thing we could be given is a chance to live again, which is why reincarnation makes sense to me. Though within this I still have to question where Mary stands. She's an ex-nun who doesn't believe in God anymore and hence has turned to physics. Yet while the events around her show that "God" was really just taking credit for something he didn't do and that now his second in command is going power crazy, I think some part of Mary should have gone, "Oh wow, there really was a God and angels and etc etc." Yet she's still firmly entrenched in her new beliefs and despite there being correlations she just doesn't see that both things can be true. But then again she was friends with people who had wheels!!!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Different Kind of P and P, God, Heaven, His Dark Materials, L. Frank Baum, Lyra Belacqua, Parents, Philip Pullman, Quotes, Return to Oz, Sex, The Amber Spyglass, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, War, Wheelers

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: July 22nd, 1997
Format: Hardcover, 326 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lyra followed her father across the bridge in the sky and lost him. There was a fog. A dense, impenetrable fog and she has found herself in a world with no one. The town she is in is deserted until one day Will shows up. Will is from an Oxford different than her own. His father was a great explorer and his mother is mentally ill. Will has been caring for his mother all his life since the disappearance of his father. Only now he and his mother are in danger. Men have broken into their house and are searching for something that his father left behind. He secrets his mother away and when he goes home to retrieve that which is sought he accidentally kills one of the intruders. On the run he sees a window into another world and climbs through and meets Lyra. They decide to join forces as the only outsiders in this weird little world they've found themselves in, which isn't empty after all. The town is run by gangs of children because the adults fled due to Spectres, dangerous beings that are invisible to children but destroy adults. The two kids go back and forth between Will's Oxford and Cittàgazze. Lyra is trying to learn about Dust and Will is trying to find his father. Lyra soon learns, thanks to nudges from the alethiometer, that perhaps her questions will be answered by helping Will find his father. Because as it turns out, his father might have played an important role in Lyra's life so far, as he one day found a window into another world like his son did and walked through, never looking back. But how are these windows even formed? Will will learn the hard way about the Subtle Knife, but it also means that in spite of the danger to him he can always go home.

If you're expecting The Subtle Knife to be a straightforward sequel to The Golden Compass you're in for a bit of a surprise. Yes, it is a continuation of Lyra's story, but perhaps not as anyone growing up reading the Harry Potter books would foresee. Harry Potter is always front and center, but here, Lyra takes a backseat. The spitfire we've grown to love has been drastically changed because of her father's betrayal and therefore it is up to the new character of Will to fill the void. While you could say that it's all about the balancing of these two characters, of male and female, I think the shifting of focus off Lyra might be more in the vein of another famous writer who dealt with church indoctrination, C.S. Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia pick up and drop the various Penvensies like they're going out of fashion, and while Pullman never deserts any of our beloved characters, they all have their specific heft depending on the book. And The Subtle Knife belongs to Will, and to a lesser but more emotionally charged way to Lee Scorsby the Texas aeronaut. This kind of results with the reader feeling a little alienated. We've fallen in love with this world and now we're back at square one. Even weirder, we're back in our own world. We have to rebuild our love of this expanding universe while our heroine is in shock. Because Lyra's absenting herself from steering the book makes sense when you think of the very real situation she is in. She's in shock from the death of her best friend Roger. She doesn't know what to do, she's just pinballing around looking for something, someone to rally around and she finds Will and makes him her new cause. Lyra is actively promoting Will while stifling her and Pan's voice.

This change up just adds to the fact that this book is suffering from typical "middle book" problems. Everyone has heard of middle child syndrome, but I think more people need to be aware of the problems inherent in middle books. Ah, the issues facing the bridging book of a trilogy... you need to make it interesting enough that people will wait with baited breath for the final volume, yet you must give them a story that holds up on it's own, while also having a satisfying ending. If you want a master class in a successful middle book look to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers or Laini Taylor's Days of Blood and Starlight or Galen Beckett's The House on Durrow Street. I could go on because when a middle book gets it right it just stays in your mind as being the exception to the rule. While The Subtle Knife does "technically" hold up on it's own, it's not due to any overarching story, it's due to little moments that take your breath away. Imagery that is unforgettable, while Pullman struggles with setting up all the pieces that will be needed for the epic conclusion. Lee Scorsby's last stand in that rocky gulch will just rip your heart out and put it back in all gritty and pained. The witches swirling through the sky, like the unforgettable illustrations of Adrienne Adams's A Woggle of Witches. The dangerous yet somehow ingenious heist of the alethiometer from the odious Sir Charles Latrom. These moments stick with you. I remembered these moments in all the years since I first read The Subtle Knife, but as for anything else like plot? It had slipped out of my head because of all those middle book issues... and worst of all Pullman decided to end the book on a major cliffhanger... sigh. You know, minor cliffhangers can be just if not more satisfying. They also don't alienate your readers.

While there are those who grow to love Will as much as Lyra, I have to say that I've always been on the fence about him. Yes, he has struggled, yes he has survived against the odds, and yes, he has a soft spot for cats, yet there was always something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Until now. Will's mother is mentally ill. This isn't the problem, the problem is the way in which Philip Pullman describes Will's thoughts in regards to his mother. I don't know if Pullman is trying to show that Will is young and naive or if Pullman himself just doesn't get mental illness. And yes, there are people out there that try as they might just aren't able to comprehend what mental illness is in any form, from having it to dealing with someone who has it. Will is very straightforward about knowing that his mother's problems come from within, that there's something wrong. She obviously has OCD as well as other more serious problems yet when Will hears about the Spectres he starts to fantasize that somehow in his world, this world, that perhaps they are what cause mental illness. While yes, a child does dream of there being some external force that can be removed and their parent returned to normal, the actual belief wouldn't be there. Having spent a childhood growing up seeing those with problems and having OCD myself Will would never be this naive. What's more he describes what his mother does as just things she does, he never once focuses on the underlying compulsion. It's like a flip got switched in her and she does these things without any logic. But the truth is for the person suffering there is a logic, a drive. They might not want to do it, they might be fighting against it every step of the way, but Pullman just doesn't get this across. Mental illness becomes just another problem Will deals with instead of the horror it really is. Pullman trivializes it for his character's backstory.

I guess the reason the way Pullman handles mental illness annoys me is because he's dealing with such weighty issues, reconciling religion and science and yet he got something so wrong that can I trust his analysis of anything? This weird give and take between religion and science is one we have fought of centuries and which is sadly still being fought as Creationism is being taught again in many schools. Yet in Lyra's world experimental theology is what physics is in our world, indicating that there science and religion are more entwined and accepting of each other. As the series continues you see that yes, it is the battle between free thought and that of indoctrination but it's not so clear cut as The Magisterium would want you to think. And yes, this book is taking many ideas and bringing them together for you to think about, especially the fall of man as Milton depicted it in Paradise Lost, but to me, at this point in the series, it almost feels as if Pullman isn't sure what his side is. Both sides have committed atrocities in his narrative, yet we have yet to learn what is the truth. Because this is fiction, while we might speculate day and night and a book that leads to a good discussion is the friend of all book lovers and book clubs everywhere, we still need to know where Pullman's opinion lies. Did God create the universe or did science? This needs to be stated. Clearly. And it wasn't here. Here we suffer once again from middle book issues and have to wait. Sometimes I just want to find authors and shake them. As I write this I'm about a third of the way through The Amber Spyglass and the truth has been revealed and with that revelation I wonder why he waited. Yes, he's created a big set piece with it, so it would have made this book a little longer. But some of the building blocks were in place and a touch more foreshadowing might have made this book a more satisfying read.

But life isn't about satisfaction most of the time. Life is about just living day to day wondering about the mysteries of the universe that if we think too long on we'll be right there with Will's mom. Yet in the end I keep coming back to the more supernatural elements of this story, the fantastical, the prophetic. The witches. The witches have a prophecy that Lyra will be the end of fate by initiating the second fall of man. Here's the thing though, how is there really fate in this "world" that Pullman has built. Prophecies are all nice and good but he's clearly shown us that the multiple worlds theory is at play here and that each and every decision creates a different universe that has splintered off. Therefore everything is possible and everything IS happening at the same time. In a multiverse where everything is possible how exactly does prophecy come into play? Is it just for this ONE Lyra and this ONE Will? If something happened to them could Lord Asriel or Mrs. Coulter or the church go to another universe and nudge that other Lyra or Will into line with what they want? I get that this is a multiverse changing war that's on the horizon, but if everything is possible at all times yet you need a certain chain of events to happen how do you do this? It's almost too hard to reconcile these opposing ideas. So Lyra will end fate. What does that mean? I mean, really, how is fate possible in these books? It could be possible if the worlds were self contained. But travel between them is possible, so then what? Again, middle book issues! It's like he just threw everything at this book and figured he'd work it all out in the end. The problem I have is can he actually work it all out? I seriously don't remember from when I first read this series!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Different Kind of P and P, C.S. Lewis, His Dark Materials, Lee Scoresby, Lyra Belacqua, Mental Illness, Philip Pullman, Religion, Science, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, Will Parry, Witches, Worldbuilding

The Book of Dust Vol. 1: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
Published by: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: October 17th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Renowned storyteller Philip Pullman returns to the parallel world of Lyra Belacqua and His Dark Materials for a thrilling and epic adventure in which daemons, alethiometers, and the Magisterium all play a part.

The Book of Dust will be a work in three parts, like His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass). The book is set ten years before The Golden Compass and centers on the much-loved character Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon.

Philip Pullman offers these tantalizing details: “I’ve always wanted to tell the story of how Lyra came to be living at Jordan College, and in thinking about it, I discovered a long story that began when she was a baby and will end when she’s grown up. This volume and the next will cover two parts of Lyra’s life: starting at the beginning of her story and returning to her twenty years later. As for the third and final part, my lips are sealed.

“So, second: is it a prequel? Is it a sequel? It’s neither. In fact, The Book of Dust is . . . an ‘equel.' It doesn’t stand before or after His Dark Materials, but beside it. It’s a different story, but there are settings that readers of His Dark Materials will recognize, and characters they’ve met before. Also, of course, there are some characters who are new to us, including an ordinary boy (a boy we have glimpsed in an earlier part of Lyra’s story, if we were paying attention) who, with Lyra, is caught up in a terrifying adventure that takes him into a new world.

“Third: why return to Lyra’s world? Dust. Questions about that mysterious and troubling substance were already causing strife ten years before His Dark Materials, and at the center of The Book of Dust is the struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organization, which wants to stifle speculation and inquiry, and those who believe thought and speech should be free. The idea of Dust suffused His Dark Materials. Little by little through that story the idea of what Dust was became clearer and clearer, but I always wanted to return to it and discover more.”

The books of the His Dark Materials trilogy were showered with praise, and the Cincinnati Enquirer proclaimed, “Pullman has created the last great fantasy masterpiece of the twentieth century.” With The Book of Dust, Philip Pullman embarks on an equally grand adventure, sure to be hailed as the first great fantasy masterpiece of the twenty-first century."

What it's all about people. What it's all about.

Harry Potter: A Journey Through A History of Magic
Published by: Arthur A. Levine Books
Publication Date: October 17th, 2017
Format: Paperback, 144 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"As the British Library unveils a very special new exhibition in the UK, Harry Potter: A History of Magic, readers everywhere are invited on an enchanting journey through the Hogwarts curriculum, from Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology to Defense Against the Dark Arts, Astronomy, and more in this book uncovering thousands of years of magical history.

Prepare to be amazed by artifacts released from the archives of the British Library, unseen sketches and manuscript pages from J.K. Rowling, and incredible illustrations from artist Jim Kay.

Discover the truth behind the origins of the Philosopher’s Stone, monstrous dragons, and troublesome trolls; examine real-life wands and find out what actually makes a mandrake scream; pore over remarkable pages from da Vinci’s notebook; and discover the oldest atlas of the night sky.

Carefully curated by the British Library and full of extraordinary treasures from all over the world, this is an unforgettable journey exploring the history of the magic at the heart of the Harry Potter stories."

Anything that makes Harry Potter more real, am I right?

House of Shadows by Nichola Cornick
Published by: Graydon House
Publication Date: October 17th, 2017
Format: Paperback, 464 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The wooded hills of Oxfordshire conceal the remains of the aptly named Ashdown House—a wasted pile of cinders and regret. Once home to the daughter of a king, Ashdown and its secrets will unite three women across four centuries in a tangle of intrigue, deceit and destiny...

In the winter of 1662, Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen, is on her deathbed. She entrusts an ancient pearl, rumored to have magic power, to her faithful cavalier William Craven for safekeeping. In his grief, William orders the construction of Ashdown Estate in her memory and places the pearl at its center.

One hundred and fifty years later, notorious courtesan Lavinia Flyte hears the maids at Ashdown House whisper of a hidden treasure, and bears witness as her protector Lord Evershot—desperate to find it—burns the building to the ground.

Now, a battered mirror and the diary of a Regency courtesan are the only clues Holly Ansell has to finding her brother, who has gone missing researching the mystery of Elizabeth Stuart and her alleged affair with Lord Craven. As she retraces his footsteps, Holly's quest will soon reveal the truth about Lavinia and compel her to confront the stunning revelation about the legacy of the Winter Queen."

Yeah, I love house books. English house books are even better!

Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak
Published by: Berkley
Publication Date: October 17th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A warm, wry, sharply observed debut novel about what happens when a family is forced to spend a week together in quarantine over the holidays...

It’s Christmas, and for the first time in years the entire Birch family will be under one roof. Even Emma and Andrew’s elder daughter—who is usually off saving the world—will be joining them at Weyfield Hall, their aging country estate. But Olivia, a doctor, is only coming home because she has to. Having just returned from treating an epidemic abroad, she’s been told she must stay in quarantine for a week…and so too should her family.

For the next seven days, the Birches are locked down, cut off from the rest of humanity—and even decent Wi-Fi—and forced into each other’s orbits. Younger, unabashedly frivolous daughter Phoebe is fixated on her upcoming wedding, while Olivia deals with the culture shock of being immersed in first-world problems.

As Andrew sequesters himself in his study writing scathing restaurant reviews and remembering his glory days as a war correspondent, Emma hides a secret that will turn the whole family upside down.

In close proximity, not much can stay hidden for long, and as revelations and long-held tensions come to light, nothing is more shocking than the unexpected guest who’s about to arrive..."

One for Christmas, which despite being October is still fast approaching...

Cooking Price-Wise by Vincent Price
Published by: Calla Editions
Publication Date: October 17th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 208 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Best known as a star of stage and screen, Vincent Price was also a noted gourmet whose enthusiastic promotion of home cooking included several cookbooks and a television show, Cooking Price-Wise. This charming book of Price's favorite recipes is based on the Thames Television series he hosted in the 1970s, which showcased timeless international cuisine. Scores of easy-to-make dishes from around the world include soups, breads, main courses, sidedishes, and desserts that can be made from ingredients readily available in supermarkets and food shops. Fascinating food-related historical tidbits add extra zest to the newly typeset recipes and numerous color and black-and-white photographs that enhance this handsome collectible edition.

This special expanded edition of Cooking Price-Wise stands as a true family affair, featuring new contributions from the author's children, including a Preface by his daughter, Victoria, and a Foreword by his son, V.B. An extensive bonus section, "The Culinary Legacy of the Price Family," includes baking recipes from Vincent's grandfather, the inventor of baking powder; journal entries from the author's eye-opening trip to Europe as a 17-year-old; and a selection of family favorites from Victoria Price's childhood. Plus, Victoria also provides a wealth of insights into the Price Culinary Legacy."

Seriously, HOW DID I NOT KNOW OF THIS BOOK!?! Also, extra points if it's cost efficient, LOL! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cooking, Cooking Price-Wise, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, House of Shadows, La Bell Sauvage, Lyra Belacqua, Philip Pullman, Seven Days of Us, The Book of Dust, Vincent Price

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: 1995
Format: Hardcover, 399 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lyra Belacqua has had the run of Jordan College in Oxford her whole young life. The poor scholars just don't know what do to with the unruly girl. With her daemon Pantalaimon by her side and her best friend Roger she has scaled the roofs, waged war on the Gyptians, and spent her life going where she pleased. Though she'd never made into the Retiring Room... the night she does is a momentous one. It's not just the success of a campaign she's long wagged, but her uncle Lord Asriel has arrived unexpectedly and within a short amount of time she saves his life and learns about something that is to become her obsession, Dust. She can feel the capital "D." But Lord Asriel leaves, alive, and life goes back to normal, that is until kids start disappearing all over England. The kidnappers are given the moniker of Gobblers and soon they aren't just in Oxford, but they've taken Roger! Lyra is determined to save him yet she is sidetracked by the lovely Mrs. Coulter. She arrives and whisks Lyra off her feet and to London, where she is to serve as her assistant. The coincidence of Mrs. Coulter's arrival and that of the Gobblers isn't noticed by Lyra until later. When she realizes that this mysterious woman is responsible and is bankrolled by the church she runs away to find Roger. Teaming up with the Gyptians they travel north. There Lyra will see the most amazing sights and also face the most horrific betrayal. But with Pantalaimon, an armoured bear, witches, an aeronaut, and the mysterious alethiometer, Lyra might just succeed and find out what this Dust is.

I first stumbled on His Dark Materials during a very turbulent time in my life. There was loss and chaos and somehow these books reflected that and made me realize things were going to be OK. I would even go so far as to say that they really helped inform my DNA and pushed me to read more, to escape into the magical worlds located innocuously between two covers but also to look outside myself, to forge new friendships and rebuild what had become of my life. These books even helped form one of my most lasting friendships. You know how finding someone who likes the same book as you is like a recommendation for that person? Well I recommended this series to my friend Jess early in our friendship and her embracing of them was like a gold star next to my name saying that I would make a good friend, which I hope I still am! But having our friendship founded on books, and I will add Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has lead to me finding more and more friends through the love of literature. I guess, as I write this, I never really grasped how much this one book changed me. The Golden Compass isn't my favorite book, but it is a formative book and all these years later I still enjoyed sinking back into Lyra's world.

Though this time I saw Lyra's world very differently. It's not that the book has changed in the least since I first picked it up or even since I re-read it before the movie came out, it's that I have changed and my world view has expanded. This of course not only makes sense but also is part and parcel of the book. The Golden Compass is all about growing up and becoming a part of the adult world. Learning about all the things, all the innuendo that slipped past you for years. Losing your innocence. It's like having the blinders taken off and what struck me forcibly this time was how much The Golden Compass is like an adult version of The Wizard of Oz. Now I'm not talking Wicked territory, though having read those books probably helped me to see this book more clearly. I mean all the elements are here, though slightly distorted. There's Lyra's daemon standing in for Toto, there's the Wicked Witch, Mrs. Coulter, there's bears and balloons and misunderstandings and and and... I just found it so interesting how the themes and the imagery from L. Frank Baum's book seemed to have so much influence here. Yet while it mirrors it it's not a carbon copy. While The Wizard of Oz is a classic, it's a flawed classic that's too saccharine and too condescending. Here we are given a new classic, it has all the elements there but is better. More adult, more adventure, and more, dare I insult a Tin Man and say heart?

The heart of this series is not our heroine Lyra, but the relationship between Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon. I had a daemon once. He was black and white and furry and was quite literally my soul. When I first read The Golden Compass I had just lost his brother and at the age of fourteen Spot became an indoor cat. Over the next eight years we became even more inseparable so when the inevitable separation came I was gutted. It has been almost nine years of feeling like I'm not all there. Feeling as if a part of me is gone. On my previous two readings Spot was alive and well and with me and our parting was a thing never to be contemplated. Yes, it would happen, but one didn't dare actually think about it. This time though he is no longer with me and therefore all the emotions that Lyra feels at the possible severing, of the intercision between her and Pantalaimon devised by Mrs. Coulter to stop Dust settling wasn't hypothetical to me, it was a reality. My soul has been split and I can well see why those who actually survive this horror become ghosts or zombies. The pain is almost unbearable. Yet to never have had the connection would be worse. Philip Pullman captures the connection between humans and animals so exquisitely that while I was hurting all over again the fact that someone else out there gets it. That someone else out there knows the power of that connection, a power to literally unlock worlds, is something of a comfort.

Yet there were also discomforting thoughts that this book brings up, questions about the Church. The school my mom was a librarian at actually banned these books when the movie came out because of Philip Pullman's beliefs. Though I think reading the books and having a discussion over the content would be far more productive than slamming a book because its author is an atheist. But the parent to lodge the initial complaint kind of has a point in that the church is depicted very badly. No that doesn't mean I'm in favor of banning any books, it just means that I am open enough to see that they have a point. The church, through the process of intercision, wants to maintain the innocence of children by not allowing dust to settle on them. And yes, they are willing to do this at the expense of their young lives. This brings about a lot of questions. Mainly, if their daemon is their soul and it is cut from them how exactly do they enter heaven? The soul is what is most important, not what happens here on earth and yet they are forfeiting their souls through this procedure. I just don't get the church's backward thinking. Of course I believe all this is addressed in the proceeding volumes, I haven't read them in awhile and this is something my mind kept coming back to while reading The Golden Compass. What's more just look to the church in our world, with all the molestation and sexual assaults. These scandals clearly show that the church itself is one of the greatest risks to children's innocence and yet in Lyra's world they are all about protecting it? Yes, these are heavy thoughts that perhaps need more time to be addressed than in this review...

Let's move onto other topics, how about worldbuilding? Philip Pullman has built this amazing and parallel world to ours with steampunk elements and animal familiars and then he ever so slightly slips up. There's the scholarly world of Oxford, the glamorous world of Mrs. Coulter, which I picture very 1920s, the rough and tumble like of the Gyptians, all fitting together into this very British world view and then there's the Bolvager facility. A facility that just doesn't fit into this written world. I'm not talking about what they do at the facility, that is very much of this imagined world, I'm talking about the building itself with it's tunnels under the snow and the ceiling tiles that can admit a girl who is rather small for her age into it's secrets. It's just too Michael Crichton. I felt like I was reading the description of the facility built at the bottom of the ocean in Sphere. Or like I was about to watch the episode of The X-Files "Ice" which was clearly an ode to Michael Crichton with it's alien parasite living in the frozen tundra. Yes, the book regains it's momentum after this bump in the road, but it's still a bump that could have been fixed! This one little section takes you out of the story and makes you feel like you're visiting your own doctor's office. Yes, facilities like this the world over are very similar, but did this facility a world away have to be? Couldn't it have had some of the vast imagination that fueled the rest of this book? Pretty please? Make the connection to itself NOT to us.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Different Kind of P and P, Church, Daemons, Dust, L. Frank Baum, Lyra Belacqua, Michael Crichton, Mrs. Coulter, Oxford, Philip Pullman, Sphere, The Golden Compass, The Wizard of Oz, The X-Files, Worldbuilding

The Collectors by Philip Pullman
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: September 22nd, 2015
Format: Kindle, 24 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

On a winter's night at Oxford College Horley sits in the Senior Common Room with his guest Grinstead. As the room gets colder and the hour gets late the other occupants slowly leave while the two talk about Horley's recent purchase of a painting and it's link to another piece of art, a rather terrifying bronze monkey. The painting Horley bought because it was a rather arresting portrait of a young women with an enigmatic air whose expression seems to always be changing. The dealer he bought it from had already made the sale so the story that came with it appears to be genuine. The painting has never been in one owner's hands for long. But wherever it goes the bronze monkey is soon to follow, though occasionally it is the monkey that arrives first and the painting shows up later. These two objects have some connection that cannot be broken as the provenance of the two pieces has undoubtedly shown. As it so happens the monkey has just arrived in Horley's possession as payment for a debt just after he purchased the painting. He hasn't even opened the packing case but the fact of it's arrival proves the story to be genuine. At this point Grinstead almost demands of his host that the time has come for Horley to show him these two pieces. They return to Horley's rooms where things take a turn. Grinstead has not been entirely honest with Horley and the story that was told wasn't new to him. These two pieces have a storied past steeped in mysteries from a distant world. And their subjects? They might just be pleased at the fate of these two men.

The Collectors never registered on my radar when it was first released in 2014 because it was an audiobook and while I am a fan of books in all forms there's something about audiobooks that I just tune out. Therefore my recent discovery that it was released as a short story for Kindle was a joyous surprise because it took me back to the beginning of Lyra's story in The Golden Compass and reconnected me to what I loved best, Lyra's life at Oxford before her journeys began. If there's one image seared in my brain from His Dark Materials it's Lyra sneaking into the Retiring Room at Jordan College. That musty and fusty domain of the male teachers that holds so much interest to the young girl and also catapults her into her destiny. With Horley and Grinstead I felt I was back in that room hearing about the adventures as the true armchair traveler that I am. I was totally absorbed until the story went a little too Douglas Adams and I felt Dirk Gently wandering about. But issues aside, what Pullman does here is to tap into the zeitgeist of the traditional English ghost story and deliver his own spin on classics like The Turn of the Screw and The Woman in Black. There's not just the mystery surrounding these two pieces of art which is almost timeless, but something akin to an ancient Egyptian curse. Something about these kind of tales that fascinate people down through the generations. Why else would people still talk about the curse of Tutankhamun?

This story taps into something primal with this idea of worlds touching and bleeding into each other and through this we get another way to look at ghosts. When I was little I had an imaginary friend. Years later I started to wonder if he was actually imaginary. I remember when we moved across the street I told my parents that Robbie couldn't come over anymore. Later I learned that the previous owner of our old house had hanged himself in the garage, right near where I saw Robbie. What if Robbie was a ghost? Or, here, what if he was someone from another world who slipped through and played with me until one day he couldn't. Maybe it was his ghostly tether or maybe it was his doorway into this world. Whatever it was this story showed me another way to look at the world. Yet this little glimpse into the fluidity of worlds was nothing for what I felt for the connection the two pieces of artwork had for each other. The painting was of Lyra's mother, Mrs. Coulter, before her marriage, and the bronze was of her daemon. While within Pullman's stories these two are morally ambiguous characters leaning towards being unrepentantly evil their connection even after death is so touching to me. That their link was so strong that inanimate objects that are basically their totems or avatars must always be together shows the power of love. They had each other and would always return to each other. So while yes, this is a ghost story, true ghost stories always, deep down, highlight something more, something human, and here, it's the power of love.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Different Kind of P and P, Art, Daemons, Ghost Story, His Dark Materials, King Tut, Love, Lyra Belacqua, Oxford, Philip Pullman, The Collectors, The Golden Compass, The Turn of the Screw, The Woman in Black

I've spent much of this last year celebrating a certain "P and P," that of the Jane Austen variety. But there's a different "P and P" I'd like to celebrate this month, and that's the author Philip Pullman.* You might be asking why I'm celebrating Philip Pullman and polar bears in a month usually devoted to something ghastly and ghoulish what with the approach of Halloween, but there's a simple answer: La Belle Sauvage, the first book in Pullman's new series, The Book of Dust. Seventeen years ago with the publication of The Amber Spyglass Pullman's fans thought they had heard the last of Lyra, her daemon, and Dust with a capital "D." Yet Pullman kept offering up tantalizing hints that we had not seen the end of this fantastical parallel world. In 2003 Lyra's Oxford, set two years after the events of the trilogy offered us a glimpse into our heroine's new life. In 2005 the 10th anniversary edition of The Golden Compass came out with wonderful drawings by Pullman at the start of each chapter.** In 2008 we got another short story followed by an audiobook in 2014. The more time passed the more obvious it was that Lyra's world wasn't done with it's creator and the clamoring fans would be appeased and the announcement from earlier this year about The Book of Dust was literally everything. These books meant so much to me when I first read them but that was almost two decades ago, as hard as that is to believe. The announcement made me long to immerse myself in this world once more. Therefore I hope you'll join me in reading His Dark Materials whether for the first or fiftieth time as the release for La Belle Sauvage gets even nearer. Let's start with a story about something that happened in the north once upon a time...

*Side note, Panserbjørn are also included in this "P" themed celebration because I seriously don't want to get on their bad side.

**The drawing of Iorek Byrnison above is one of these illustrations. 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Different Kind of P and P, Dust, Illustration, Iorek Byrnison, La Belle Sauvage, Lyra Belacqua, Lyra's Oxford, Panserbjørn, Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass, The Book of Dust, The Golden Compass