amedia | (no subject)

Well, I finished The Amber Spyglass, which seemed to take forever - unlike the first two books, which I read very quickly. Every time it started to get interesting, the author would break off and take us somewhere else. I got really tired of those dratted Houhynyms - oops, I mean mulefa. Plus it was really obvious that he had an axe to grind; the preaching (if that's the right word) got in the way of the story quite a bit.

I think an editor needed to sit him down with a not-so-subtle knife and say, "Come back when it's half as long."

ETA: I should make the obligatory noises here: it was a remarkably inventive, creative work; there were some breathtaking scenes and terrific characters; there were multiple allusions of great erudition. I just didn't like it very much.

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From:

amedia.livejournal.com

The Houhynyms- I'm probably not spelling that quite right - are an invention of Jonathan Swift. The society of the Houhynyms - I've heard it pronounced something like Whinnims by people who know things - is the only non-dysfunctional society Gulliver comes across in his travels. After staying with them, he can hardly bear the company of people, who come off quite badly in comparison. They're SOooo incredibly kind and thoughtful and polite and well-adjusted that they're kind of hard to believe. The mulefa reminded me of them.

It's a case where I think his axe - Pullman's, I mean - gets in the way of good storytelling; he was so eager to demonstrate how wonderful a society untainted by religion would be, that he fails (IMHO) to make them interesting as individuals.

He also spends a really long time going on and on about them and their wheels and seedpods and whatnot when what we really want to know is what's happening with Will and Lyra! Aargh!

From:

pocketwitch.livejournal.com

I'd like to reread that series at some point, because I read them all together, and I think I was just so swept up in it that I wasn't critical at all. Not that I don't think I'd love it the second time around, but I might be more likely to notice things like that.

But then again, I tend to not be able to be very critical about things I love, so I'd probably still just end up saying "BUT IT'S SO GOOD SQUEE!"

I do agree about the mulefa not being very distinct as individuals, though, but I think that I liked Mary enough that, in those sections, she made up for it. I was interested enough in her that I wasn't just racing through those parts wanting more of Lyra & Will.

From:

amedia.livejournal.com

I think I was just so swept up in it that I wasn't critical at all.

The first time I read the Golden Compass I had the same reaction. This time, since I vaguely remembered how it went, I had more time to look around, as it were. I was still somewhat caught up in the other two, but not quite as much.

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A lot of what he said resonated with various philosophers. The idea of matter embodying consciousness reminded me of Heraclitus' identification of fire with rationality, although much later it reminded me of Lucretius' soul atoms, which disperse when the body dies - Lucretius presents that as tremendously good news that should make everyone a lot happier about death - little Roger's bubble of mirth just before his dissolution is almost like Lucretius-turned-into-fiction.

At first when we learned from the Incredibly Slashy Angels [veg] that "God" wasn't really God at all, but a usurper, I thought the author was going to follow through with a gnostic perspective and to some extent he does follow the concept of salvation through knowledge - which is, after all, what the "golden compass" and the "amber spyglass" provide, as well as what brought about the "subtle knife." But the final resolution seemed anticlimactic.

I did like the way Metatron died and the roles that Asriel and Mrs. Coulter played in his death - but that name! All the other angels had names like Baruch and Xaphania - Metatron sounds like a cousin of Mothra and Godzilla. It also made me think of Melakon, the Nazi second-in-command in a very heavy-handed Star Trek episode - in which the so-called Fuehrer is a sick, doddering old man - kinda like The Authority - that was a really hard association to dismiss because it made me giggle when I shouldn't have.

From:

pocketwitch.livejournal.com

Metatron just made me think of Alan Rickman in Dogma, an association I had to get past because otherwise I would have cried when he died. LOL.

And man, did I ever love those slashy angels ... you know, I think, probably, that they alone could erase all my capacity to say anything negative about this book. "But ... but ... GAY ANGELS!"

I knew through the whole series that there was a lot going on that I sort of didn't get, or that I got the concepts but didn't get where they were originating from or what they were derivative of, since I am not, after all, the one with the Big Rockin' Philosophy Education (although I did learn a lot from this really nifty philosophy prof I had in college ... ).

I sort of liked that the resolution seemed anti-climatic. I liked that the two main events of the book - that were built up to these huge mythologies before they even happened - sort of happened without anyone realizing they were happening. Mary talking about the marzipan - she had no idea what she was doing, but here was this big Temptation Event that everyone was wailing about, and it happened without her having a clue what she was doing.

And then when they killed The Authority, they didn't even know what they had done. I just liked that, personally - that the most important things just sort of happened on their own, without any big moments of "This Right Here Is A Significant Event!"

From:

amedia.livejournal.com

I really liked the OMG GAY ANGELS!, especially the snarky one.

although I did learn a lot from this really nifty philosophy prof I had in college ...

Blush... grin.

I read a book once called Avalon, I think, a historical novel for which the author had obviously done tons and tons of research and wanted to make sure every single scrap of it wound up in the book, so that her heroine had a number of convoluted/contrived adventures just so she could be in a situation where we would learn about matrilineal inheritance among the Vikings or what-have-you. Sometimes this series reminded me of that - it was as if he had so many Big Philosophical ideas and he wanted to make sure they all got in. Whereas I think the central ideas would have been more powerful if the last book in particular had been more streamlined.

The more I think about it, the more I think the Authority just fading away - being killed by their kindness in letting him out (it reminds me of Meg's realization that if only she could bring herself to love The Brain, her love would kill it, in A Wrinkle in Time) - works really well for the story. There was also an interesting doubling effect: just as the Authority had usurped the role of God, Metatron (Son of Voltron!) had actually taken over from the Authority and had been running things in his name. So it was fitting that Metatron died in the big struggle over the abyss, while the Authority went out without even a whimper.

But I was disappointed in Lyra's anticlimactic resolution because her temptation and Fall had been built up so much throughout the books, anticipated with prophecies by the witches and dreaded by the Church. What precisely was her temptation, anyway, and did she fall? She didn't seem to *choose* to fall in love with Will. Now, she *did* have to make a choice, and a very painful one, when it came to closing all the windows and leaving Will forever - but that was a choice they made together, and it was too indirectly related to what Mary said; it didn't fit the prophecy about Lyra. Falling in love with Will did fit the prophecy, in the sense that it brought back the Dust, but it just didn't seem to be any real kind of temptation to sin, nor a deliberate choice that she made.

From:

supercheesegirl.livejournal.com

It's clearly been a while since I read the books--I'm reading your discussion and not remembering at all who Metatron is, but having a very definite idea that he should be able to transform into a sports car. :)