The problem with the ending of The Amber Spyglass–specifically Lyra & Will having to separate from one another forever and swearing (at 13!) to forever dedicate themselves to a chaste love for the rest of their lives–is that it’s too…damn…Christian. Pullman spends the previous 600 pages or so basically rebutting the notion that spirit is the only good and that flesh is the only bad, and then rebuts his own argument.
This would work in some contexts. But it doesn’t work here. It doesn’t seem noble and tragic–just cruel & stupid.
Tough to compare the two over the intervening half century, although I guess that’s what makes these threads fun. I couldn’t read CoN now for myself - I’d see the CoN as something to read to my kid at bedtime. I’m anticipating that the books will hold up pretty well at that level, although the Enid Blyton class overtones that I recall will date them badly even to a six year old.
I loved Pullman’s trilogy as an adult. I’m with the majority that thought it noticeably deteriorated in the final third, but see this as a simple writing problem rather than any deep conceptual flaw. He just got the nuts and bolts of the story wrong - pacing, balance, structure etc. Spyglass had the creative oomph to be a success, but he didn’t pull it off. He’s hardly the first to struggle with concluding a series.
I think both series derive a certain ersatz profundity from the religious themes that they explore. Because religion is such a deeply personal and philosophical area, it is easy for readers to project a lot of meaning into books that are actually a bit lightweight. Both series are far from being the worst offenders here, but I think there is a tendancy to conflate what the writers actually say on religion, which may not be especially interesting, with what the reader thinks about religion, which of course is of outstanding interest and relevance
I’ve not read anything else by Pullman - wouldn’t be in a hurry to pick something up as it sounds like HDM is his best work by some distance. Outside of CoN I’ve only read The Great Divorce, which is laughably bad. I’ve thought of Lewis as quite a limited writer on this basis - maybe it’s not fair to judge him from one of his lesser works.
Seems to me unlikely that he did NOT consider himself a professional writer of fiction, given his success as just that. No, it wasn’t his day job, but there’s no question but that he took it seriously and worked hard at it. And made some fairly serious money from it.
But it’s an interesting question: Do you only do “professionally” what you spend the most time on (and get paid for)? At what point does a hobby become a profession?
I think i’m pretty much in agreement with** Jodi**, too. The final book is one of the very few that left me in tears, so obviously it had a great effect - but it seemed to me that it was more or less odd bits and pieces that I thought were good and interesting, rather than the whole story itself, which I don’t believe I could repeat back to you in excellent detail.
The Narnia books are sort of the opposite in a way, in that the stories generally work pretty well (at the very least, I remember them pretty well), but there’s no real great ideas in them (though Eustace becoming and then un-becoming a dragon was pretty neat). They’re just pretty bog standard fantasy in the originality department. I’d read them again because I read them as a kid; that’s really the only reason they hold any interest for me anymore. Whereas my interest in Pullman’s trilogy is pretty much just thinking “Damn, that ending” whenever I am inspired to think along those lines.
I don’t really think of either of them as being “great works”.
Like several others, I loved the Narnia books as a child – even the bits where Lewis stripped his allegory away. And I loved Pullman’s first book, liked the second, found the third a trial to finish, and have never been even slightly interested in looking at them again. While I still pull out Narnia occasionally, and still enjoy parts of it.
One thing that occurs to me was that Lewis’s series was for something, and Pullman’s was only really against. Perhaps it’s not surprising that one might feel more affection for a series that promotes an ideal, as opposed to ultimately not doing much more than trying to tear that ideal down … even if one doesn’t personally agree with what’s being promoted.
Puddleglum’s words in The Silver Chair sum the argument up, for me: I’m for Narnia, even if there isn’t any Narnia. Because when you come right down to it, if I’m dreaming, I prefer the happy dreams.
It’s been awhile since I read HDM, but weren’t they pretty strongly for the idea of human self-determination of their destiny, with the dust attracted to strong wills, or something like that?
I agree; Pullman spends a lot of time saying that sacrifice isn’t noble, just dumb, and then has his heroes pull a traditional self-sacrificing ending.
I dunno, it’s just the feeling in the back of my head and it’s not very well expressed.
I can’t answer this with total confidence because it’s been a long time since I read HDM myself and I’m not interested in giving the books another try. But I do recall that my overwhelming impression on completing HDM was that its basic raison d’être was to attack Christianity; whereas Narnia is of course strongly pro-Christianity (though I wouldn’t say that promoting Christianity is Narnia’s raison d’être).
Yes! And besides that: I can see why he wanted to end with a ray of hope, but to me it was like he lacked the courage of the obvious implications of his world view, which was that they really, really were never going to see each other again, ever. You live apart, then you die and you’re dead.
I think I remember at the end of the book, Will and Lyra having a conversation to the effect that somehow, someday, in some form, thye would be together again. And I thought, not if the rest of this book is right, you won’t.
I probably said this upthread, but I’m too lazy to check. Anyway–Narnia isn’t so much didactically pro-Christian as it is set in a universe in which Christianity is ontologically true. You can utterly understand the books without knowing a thing about Jesus Christ, whose name is never uttered. Contrariwise, HDM is largely summarized as “I…hate…Jesus…so…much…it…forces…me…to…abuse…ellipses!”
What really bothers me is the notion that Will & Lyra were supposed to go to the corresponding spots in their separate worlds, once a year, to commune with the memory of their poor lost affair. That’s a guaranteed way to ensure that neither will ever be happy,and it’s presented as a good thing. Given the degree of authorial comment on the narrative, it’s unforgiveably bad. Someone–Iorek Byrnison for Lyra, and Mary for Will–should have been forced to say, “You must not do this. It is an unforgiveable betrayal of anyone you marry, and it is not healthy for you.”
On the other hand…
Iorek Byrnsion is the bestest character ever. The part of me that doesn’t hate everyone loves the great bear-king.
Perhaps they realized they were characters in a fantasy series, and that their author would be under incredible pressure to write another sequel that didn’t suck.
Just because it’s an appropriate thread to put it in, let me interject a very off-topic and politically snarky hijack pun here, simply for the humor in it, and without any intent to derail the thread or interject political opinion into CS: “Lewis’s new series The Chronicles of Alaska gets off to a good start with the first book: The Lyin’ Witch and Her Wardrobe”
I don’t know if it did or not, but then “delving into incipient sexuality” is kinda vague. I don’t remember anything like that, and I did read the American version, but if it was censored I had no idea.
I’m not sure that’s so - I mean, the alternative idea would be that one comes to the world of the other permanently, leading to their eventual death, which seems far more the route you’d go sacrifice-wise.
