🦋 Weaknesses in Amber Spyglass
Michael Bérubé has a long post today about His Dark Materials and a few other things (thanks for pointing it out, Levi) -- it is a bit dense but as near as I can tell, he means to defend The Amber Spyglass against critics who think it is the weakest book in the series because it is too preachy, and simultaneously to point out a weakness in the series -- that it is written on too grand a scale -- and to talk about some other fantasy series, like LOTR and C.S. Lewis' science fiction books, in this context. I'm grateful to Dr. Bérubé for what he says about the world of the dead scene in The Amber Spyglass -- I had been having some cognitive dissonance over the last few weeks from failing to acknowledge the lameness of the Lyra's-hair bomb plot device. I had gotten up on a horse about the great beauty of the descent into the world of the dead, but was having trouble riding it. That said I don't think the idea that the harpies want to hear true stories of the world of the living is as bad as Bérubé does; I kind of like it, and I didn't attach a huge amount of importance to its role in the plot as I was reading. I'm tentatively working on a response to people who complain about the preachiness of His Dark Materials, and which I think would also work as a response to Bérubé's complaint about Tolkien's stilted language -- making the argument against the church seems to be a huge part of Pullman's goal in writing these books. I did not (generally) find that the pedantry detracted from the story; but he is not only telling a story. Saying that the pedantry detracts from the story is like, well, like saying that Tolkien's archæic usages detract from his story -- I think Tolkien is at least as interested in creating a world where these usages will work, as he is in telling a story about a hobbit's quest. But this needs a fair amount of work before it will actually be an argument of any sort.
 Some great discussion in the comments thread over there as well -- particularly from Kathleen, Alan Jacobs, Rich Puchalsky. I'm reluctant to enter into it myself because I like the books so much -- the tone of the comment thread seems to be focusing on the faults of the books, if I join the discussion mooning about how great the trilogy is, I am just going to look silly and thoughtless -- and yet I find my response to the criticisms is mostly just along the lines of "yeah that's true, but still it is a wonderful read..."
posted evening of Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
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