The Amber Spyglass

I finished The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman last night. I have to thank Amy once again for recommending the series. I really enjoyed all three books and am now a bit sad that I won’t be spending more time hanging out with Lyra and Will. It was not an ending that I expected, but I think it was pretty satisfactory.

Spoilers abound!

Once again I was impressed by Pullman’s writing skills and refusal to spell everything out for his readers. The characters continued to be complex, especially my old favorite Mrs. Coulter. I enjoyed trying to figure out her motives and love it was her, for lack of a better word, evil nature that allowed her to do one good deed and help defeat Metatron. Lord Astriel remains a mystery to me though. I never got a particularly clear picture of his motives, I guess he’s the person who sees what must be done and ruthlessly looks out for the greater good. Their relationship was very interesting, not to mention their relationship with their daughter. I admire Pullman’s restraint in not giving a picture perfect moment when Lyra learns that her parents did in fact care for her and sacrificed themselves to allow her to complete her destiny.

Pullman continued his tradition of devastatingly beautiful scenes with his description of Lyra and Will’s journey into the land of the dead. Lyra’s decision to move ahead and leave Pan behind was heart wrenching. Once again Lee Scoresby had a lovely death scene. I loved the image of all of the ghosts disintegrating and rejoining their dæmons, but the image of Lee finally being reunited with Hester was beautiful. Lyra and Will’s love scene was incredibly well written and the Adam and Eve symbolism was very well done. I’m wondering how that will work when and if a movie is made. I’m not sure that people will accept the visual of two twelve year olds falling so entirely in love.

I love that the solution in the end was that essentially the dogma of the church was getting in the way of the necessary action of basically being in right relationship to other people. I did not expect the further solution of Lyra and Will being forced to give each other up to save the dust and allow all the worlds to continue to exist. I was sorry that there is no epilogue, but I suppose it is unnecessary as one can be sure that the dust that is Lyra and Will will be reunited in the end.

All together I very much enjoyed the His Dark Materials trilogy. I felt that Pullman did an excellent job of building his story and laying the groundwork that would allow the conclusion to work. Lyra and Will grew and changed so much through the three books to become the two people who could sacrifice their own happiness for the good of others. I liked the ending with Lyra keeping the secret of her new relationship with Pan, where her previous self would have shown it off.

I imagine that I may have more to say about the books in the future as I’m sure I’ll continue to think about them over the next few weeks. Someday Clay will manage to get through them as well and any discussion that we have will likely spawn even more thoughts so there will likely be a follow up to this post in the future.