The Amber Spyglass
In the climax of Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass, the final book in the His Dark Materials
trilogy, two twelve year olds save the world by having sex and
declaring their undying love for each other. This is something that I do
not like. I find it weird and uncomfortable and it keeps me from
re-reading this book. I probably would have continued to ignore it, if
not for the Mark Reads project, though it is nice to reaffirm my own
view of this book.
It's a shame, because there's a lot about The Amber Spyglass that I really like.Dr. Mary Malone is a great character. The mulefa and their world are endlessly fascinating. I love all the thought and detail that goes into this completely alternate evolutionary chain. Lyra and Will's journey through the underworld is great and manages to bring some Greek mythology into play with all the Christian mythology that dominates the trilogy.
Unfortunately, as interesting as the bulk of the book is, the ending is equal parts creepy and sloppy. Will and Lyra declare their undying love for each other, which is a little hard to buy coming from the mouths of twelve-year-olds. And though Pullman never explicitly says that they have sex, it is heavily implied. All this while they are specifically pre-pubescent, which just adds to the creep factor.
After Lyra and Will save the world with their love, we learn that they will be forced to spend the rest of their lives in separate universes never to see each other again. They can't settle in one or the other because the foreigner will only have a decade to live. They can't leave windows between worlds open, because that's how the Dust escapes. This whole journey has been about stopping the Dust from escaping, so leaving it an escape route would be kind of silly. Except that they do have to leave one window open so that ghosts aren't trapped in the underworld for eternity. This is okay, since humans create Dust by thinking. Humans will create enough Dust to offset leaving one window open for eternity, but not enough to leave a second window open for sixty more years.
Sigh.
There are a lot of interesting ideas in this trilogy as a whole. It's a pretty great take-down of organized religion, arguing that blind obedience isn't good and that what we should be striving for is knowledge of the world around us. But the ending of this book just rubs me the wrong way.
It's a shame, because there's a lot about The Amber Spyglass that I really like.Dr. Mary Malone is a great character. The mulefa and their world are endlessly fascinating. I love all the thought and detail that goes into this completely alternate evolutionary chain. Lyra and Will's journey through the underworld is great and manages to bring some Greek mythology into play with all the Christian mythology that dominates the trilogy.
Unfortunately, as interesting as the bulk of the book is, the ending is equal parts creepy and sloppy. Will and Lyra declare their undying love for each other, which is a little hard to buy coming from the mouths of twelve-year-olds. And though Pullman never explicitly says that they have sex, it is heavily implied. All this while they are specifically pre-pubescent, which just adds to the creep factor.
After Lyra and Will save the world with their love, we learn that they will be forced to spend the rest of their lives in separate universes never to see each other again. They can't settle in one or the other because the foreigner will only have a decade to live. They can't leave windows between worlds open, because that's how the Dust escapes. This whole journey has been about stopping the Dust from escaping, so leaving it an escape route would be kind of silly. Except that they do have to leave one window open so that ghosts aren't trapped in the underworld for eternity. This is okay, since humans create Dust by thinking. Humans will create enough Dust to offset leaving one window open for eternity, but not enough to leave a second window open for sixty more years.
Sigh.
There are a lot of interesting ideas in this trilogy as a whole. It's a pretty great take-down of organized religion, arguing that blind obedience isn't good and that what we should be striving for is knowledge of the world around us. But the ending of this book just rubs me the wrong way.
Comments
Post a Comment