Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'd like to offer a bit of dissent from all the raves concerning the Dark Materials trilogy. Let's begin at the beginning. *The Golden Compass* is a work of true genius, sparkling with inventiveness and carrying the reader on through its essentially absurd plot (do you *really* believe that any eleven-year-old girl, no matter how precocious, could accomplish all those things?) with fine panache and an unflagging sense of wonder. Don't stop to think, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Lyra, the girl from the parallel universe, is out to save her father from the captivity of armored polar bears and at the same time free her friends from the diabolical experiments of the fiendish Mrs. Coulter. What could be better? Book Two, *The Subtle Knife*, jars us a bit by switching the viewpoint to our own world, where Will, a young lad about Lyra's age, also sets out on a quest to find his lost father. Will is another full-fledged superkid, able to accomplish tasks that would daunt even Odysseus as he meets Lyra, interacts with all manner of bizarre beings and hops from world to world with tireless stamina. Alas, Will is never quite as convincing as Lyra, perhaps because he's so thoroughly grounded in our own mundane world, perhaps because his beyond-adult courage, wisdom, endurance and innate nobility are so utterly over-the-top (far eclipsing even Lyra's astonishing talents) that they begin to test the boundaries of our suspension of disbelief. Even James Bond was never this resourceful, and certainly never so remarkably articulate. There are some things that just don't wash, even in a fantasy. But all the same, there's action aplenty, and if you're not in too critical a frame of mind, *The Subtle Knife* makes for an enjoyable read. But by Book Three, *The Amber Spyglass*, Pullman's characters and storylines begin to explode in all directions, leaving us to wonder just which of the many players we're supposed to be rooting for -- and why. Multiple plotlines are fine, if they're kept within reason, but when the device is overdone, the reader becomes like a passenger on a fast-moving train, trying to look at all the passing landmarks but unable to concentrate on any of them long enough to really appreciate them. Maybe it's simple authorial zeal; but then again, maybe it's to keep the reader from looking closely enough to spot the ever-multiplying logical inconsistencies. Very quickly, the author's astonishing inventiveness begins to betray him as new concepts, magical gadgetry and otherworldly beings are piled on in such relentless layers that we very quickly reach the saturation point at which anything is possible and therefore nothing can any longer be surprising. Worse, many of them seem to have been invented as mere devices for hauling the characters in and out of the latest alarming predicament. Does the Intention Craft, to name just one, really have any purpose in the storyline other than to give Mrs. Coulter a way to escape from Lord Asriel's fortress? But most unforgivable of all, *The Amber Spyglass* is less of a novel than a thinly-fictionalized religious -- or should I say anti-religious? -- screed disguised as a fantasy novel. For Lord Asriel's intention is nothing less than to slay God himself and leave the multiverse the exclusive property of its wise inhabitants. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that God turns out to be nothing more than a drooling, withered, senile angel who gratefully evaporates when the two juvenile protagonists release him from his crystal life-support coffin, but Lord Asriel is undaunted. After all, there's still God's Regent to contend with, a lustful angel with a name ("Metatron") that would hardly be out of place on a Japanese giant robot. Of course with no God, there's always the thorny question of life after death, but militant atheist Pullman has an answer to that one, too. There is neither Heaven nor Hell, but there is a sort of Homeric underground afterlife where the powerless, whispering shades of the dead go to mutter to each other while harpies mock them for their earthly shortcomings. Not too appealing, you say? Will and Lyra agree, and after the usual superhuman efforts, they descend into Hades and free the dead souls. But being dead, after all, where can the shades go? Why, to oblivion, of course! They now have the option of choosing utter dissolution over an eternity of ghostly mediocrity, and just so we don't get the mistaken impression that this isn't really much of a choice, Pullman shows us that the dead are just deliriously happy to die for the second time, this time for keeps. I single this oddity out as an example of the author's relentless atheistic digs not because it's unique but because it's simply one of so very many from which to choose. Personally, I have no problem with atheists, but I can't abide *strident* atheists any more than I can abide strident religious fanatics, and *The Amber Spyglass* is one long atheist tract masquerading as a fantasy novel. Again, I emphasize that both atheists and atheist novels per se are fine with me, but when the ideology starts to overwhelm the storyline, it's time to bail out. Pullman's loathing of religion -- particularly Christianity, *most* particularly Roman Catholicism -- drips from every page, until even the most militant apostate is ready to scream "enough!" Whatever the characters are fighting *for* in this great battle against the All-not-so-Mighty, isn't entirely clear, since the multiverse still seems to be an awfully bleak and unappealing place after the Dust finally settles. It certainly isn't Love, because none of the couples in the trilogy -- be they Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, the homosexual angels (yes) Baruch and Balthamos, or Lyra and Will themselves -- are allowed to come to a non-tragic end after their travails. In fact, poor Will and Lyra are cheated out of their hard-earned right to each other by a plot device so heavy-handedly contrived and artificial that we can only believe that the author was determined that there should be nothing remotely resembling anything as trite as a Happy Ending tainting the lunar landscape of his saga, no matter the cost to the readers' credibility. The "tragic" ending to *The Amber Spyglass* isn't so much tear-jerky as simply jerky. The *His Dark Materials* trilogy certainly is not, as the cover blurbs would have it, a new and formidable competitor to *Lord of the Rings*. It is, in fact, a kind of antimatter version of C.S. Lewis' heavy-handedly preachy Narnia books, but sadly lacking any trace of Lewis' charm. Fanatical Pullman fans will (and do) loudly proclaim that only "fundamentalist Christians" (aka "religious bigots") could possibly be disappointed with *The Amber Spyglass*, but in fact it's more like disappointment in a trilogy that begins so promisingly only to deteriorate into a rambling, unfocused, illogical rant in what should have been the climactic volume. My recommendation: buy *The Golden Compass*, and enjoy it without hesitation. If you feel that you absolutely *have* to see more of what's going on in Philip Pullman's sad multiverse, go ahead and get *The Subtle Knife*, too. But unless you have an unslakable thirst for obsessive antireligious tracts wrapped up in grimly contrived fantasy trappings that fairly groan at their stretching seams (and I know there are many people out there who do), don't bother with *The Amber Spyglass*. Well, if you *really* want to read it, I have a copy I'm willing to let go. Cheap.