Philip Pullman: The Amber Spyglass
It's a year or so since I read The Amber Spyglass. It was difficult to know what to make of it at the time, and I'm not sure that I know any better now.
My impression on reading Northern Lights was that there is something really extraordinary here. To take a sideways look (so to speak) at human nature, by inventing the 'daemon' in Lyra's world, and then to explore the implications of this so throughly as he did, was an incredible feat of imaginative writing. It was always going to be difficult to follow it through in the subsequent volumes. However good they might be, whatever twists there might be to the characters or the plot, they could hardly make the same impact as Northern Lights did, when it came 'out of the blue'.
The Subtle Knife was very good, and the character of Will, plus the fact that he's from our world rather than Lyra's, adds enough to the story so that it feels as though the project is still moving forward. I'm not sure that's altogether the case with The Amber Spyglass. Though it's still very good in many ways, it does feel rather as though the story is running out of steam (to bring in yet another metaphor). The other problem is that, being the last in the series, the book has to sort out the various loose ends and somehow round the whole thing off in a satisfying way. I suspect that's why it took Pullman so long to finish this book, and why the deadline kept slipping.
The book isn't a disappointment — except for one aspect, noted below. It rounds off the story in a reasonably satisfying way. Still, I can't help feeling that, when the first volume was so extraordinarily good, the series could have concluded on a more triumphant note, if the inspiration had continued to flow in the same measure as it clearly did at the start.
The exception I just mentioned is the ridiculous and (to be honest) rather childish way in which God appears in the story. I wouldn't bother mentioning it, except that it illustrates a weakness that I only noticed when I read William Nicholson's books (see separate entry), which are in marked contrast in this respect. I'm talking about the difference between what Tolkien calls 'allegory' and 'applicability' in the preface to The Lord of the Rings.
In Northern Lights, for example, it isn't clear whether Pullman has any definite parallel with reality in mind, when he introduces the concept of the 'daemon'. Does it represent the soul, or the conscience, or what? The fact that this isn't spelt out is a definite strength. It means that the story is left to work on our imagination, without being tied down (and so limited) to a particular interpretation.
Even the idea of the 'Magisterium' doesn't tie us down too much. It is clearly a very negative image of religion, but the reader is left free to decide whether all religion must necessarily be like the Magisterium, or whether this is just a particularly repulsive form, a corruption of true religion.
In The Amber Spyglass, when 'God' actually appears in the story, the fantasy becomes forced into a particular interpretation (as far as God and religion are concerned). It is no longer a question of criticising certain misuses of religion, or certain false ideas of God. Religion in any form is seen as an evil.
This isn't particularly a problem for me, but it is a problem for my appreciation of the fantasy. Pullman's idea of religion (as it now emerges) has nothing whatever in common with mine, and so that part of the story just becomes irrelevant for me. To that extent, the fantasy has lost its hold upon my imagination; to that extent, as fantasy, it has failed.
This is undoubtedly a disappointment, but it doesn't prevent my enjoying the rest of the book. Nor is it a problem knowing for certain, now, that in Northern Lights Pullman himself sees the Magisterium as standing for religion in general. Having a different idea of what religion is, I can still observe that (from my perspective) the Pullman's 'Magisterium' embodies a mind-set that religious people can slip into if they are not careful. Though this is not the meaning the author would give to it, I am free — as is any reader — to make my own interpretation in the way that makes most sense to me. What other readers make of it is up to them.