READIN

🦋 The judgement to tell the false from the true

I've been meaning to post this passage from The Amber Spyglass, which I found deeply moving and which I think sums up the entire trilogy in a couple of paragraphs. I don't have much to say about it beyond that, so will just quote. (Note: if you are reading or planning to read the series and do not like spoilers, don't read this entry.) The setting is the world of the dead; Lyra and Will are planning to create an opening which will allow the ghosts of the dead to escape into the world of the living, that they might be annihilated, allowed truly to die.

Long quote below the fold.

No one spoke. Those who had seen how dæmons dissolved were remembering it, and those who hadn't were imagining it, and no one spoke until a young woman came forward. She had died as a martyr centuries before. She looked around and said to the other ghosts:

"When we were alive, they told us that when we died we'd go to Heaven. And they said that Heaven was a place of joy and glory and we would spend eternity in the company of saints and angels praising the Almighty, in a state of bliss. That's what they said. And that's what led some of us to give our lives, and others to spend years in solitary prayer, while all the joy of life was going to waste around us and we never knew.

"Because the land of the dead isn't a place of reward or a place of punishment. It's a place of nothing. The good come here as well as the wicked, and all of us languish in this gloom forever, with no hope of freedom, or joy, or sleep, or rest, or peace.

"But now this child has come offering us a way out and I'm going to follow her. Even if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it, because it won't be nothing. We'll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves; we'll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze; we'll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, which is our true home and always was.

"So I urge you: come with the child out to the sky!"

But her ghost was thrust aside by the ghost of a man who looked like a monk: thin, and pale even in his death, with dark zealous eyes. He crossed himself and murmured a prayer, and then he said:

"This is a bitter message, a sad and cruel joke. Can't you see the truth? This is not a child. This is an agent of the evil one himself! The world we lived in was a vale of corruption and tears. Nothing there could satisfy us. But the Almighty has granted us this blessed place for all eternity, this paradise, which to the fallen soul seems bleak and barren, but which the eyes of faith see as it is, overflowing with milk and honey and resounding with the sweet hymns of the angels. This is heaven, truly! What this evil girl promises is nothing but lies. She wants to lead you to Hell! Go with her at your peril. My companions and I of the true faith will remain here in our blessed paradise, and spend eternity singing the praises of the Almighty, who has given us the judgement to tell the false from the true."

Once again he crossed himself, and then he and his companions turned away in horror and loathing.

posted morning of Sunday, March 15th, 2009
➳ More posts about His Dark Materials
➳ More posts about Children's Books
➳ More posts about Readings

This trilogy paints strong characters and images. It's well written and has beautiful moments like this one (people will cling to their dogmas!), but over all I felt really unsatisfied at the end. Although whole book is a comment on God and religion, the climax it lacked passion and felt too cerebral to me to feel authentic. There is also a brutality woven throughout the stories-often directed at children, which I found unnecessary in its intensity.

posted afternoon of March 17th, 2009 by painter ofblue

Huh, that's very different to how I experienced it -- I found the ending deeply satisfying (if a little too drawn out). The conflict in the final chapters where Will and Lyra had to commit to living separately seemed authentic to me. The only parts of the trilogy that seemed too cerebral to me came in the second book, which I thought was the weakest. The brutality -- well I agree, there is a lot of it -- but to me it feels like the whole universe of the book is built around the brutality of organized religion -- complaining about it would feel like complaining about too much guitar in a rockabilly record.

I'm wondering about what the comparison will be between this and The Lord of the Rings.

posted afternoon of March 17th, 2009 by Jeremy

The part that I really wanted to move me was when the souls were released and dissolved. To me that was the ontological climax and it fell flat. After that I wasn't as invested in the story.

The Lord of the Rings has a lot of violence but it didn't feel gratuitous to me as in his dark materials. I think LOR is much more complex and philosophically more sophisticated and subtle- the themes less over-thought and cerebral. (Even though Tolkien, as a linguist and scholar put tremendous thought it to it.) At least I relate to them more and the characters overall are more complex and formed.

posted evening of March 18th, 2009 by painter ofblue

when the souls were released and dissolved

Well -- that was the climax as far as the souls of dead were concerned. And in the case of Lee Scoresby, who was maybe the character we knew best among the dead, there was a real rush of energy in the moment when he dissipated into the universe. What I got from the ending of the novel was that that was not the climax for the living characters Lyra and Will, and that the real point of the story is their experience of life -- the dead characters are dead, and it's wonderful that they will be able truly to die, but in the end they are not where Pullman's interest lies.

posted evening of March 18th, 2009 by Jeremy

Or pur another way -- I don't think the ontological narrative -- Lyra and Will's descent into the world of the dead, Asriel's fight against the authority, the historical war between forces of wisdom and stupidity -- was the main thing His Dark Materials was about. It was the foundation of the trilogy, and hugely important; but the story was a story about Lyra's and Will's transition from childhood to adulthood; these two living characters were the main focus. All the religion and philosophy were a backdrop for their story.

posted evening of March 18th, 2009 by Jeremy

Respond:

Name:
E-mail: (will not be displayed)
Link:
Remember info	Send