Book Review |
| The Amber Spyglass |
|
This is the third book in Phillip Pullman’s, “His Dark
Materials” trilogy. I enjoyed it a lot but I thought the book started a bit slowly. I was keen for him to get on with the action of the
story straight away. However, I guess the beginning was necessarily slow because he had to
remind people of what had happened in earlier books and he had to show us that some
changes had taken place for this book. It starts off with Mrs Coulter keeping
Lyra drugged so that she can be with her. This is certainly a big leap, from the, “I
do not care about children and I am performing experiments on them which will probably
kill them,” type of Mrs Coulter, to the, motherly “I love my child and I want to
be with her as long as possible and I will not let her be killed” type of Mrs
Coulter. This is a greatly needed personality change and is very significant to the plot
of this third book. Many people, beasts and beings from
far and near, from other planets which are completely different must play their own parts
in the destiny of life and they must take a side and fight in the biggest war ever –
the war where Lord Asriel takes on the Authority! At last, in this book, we begin to
understand the connections between Lyra’s world and all the other worlds in the
Universe. We are given a glimpse of how they work and what the differences are and how
each is important in the scheme. All the characters in this book
encounter many strange things, but Lyra encounters the strangest! Along with Will, she has
an amazing adventure which even takes her to the land of the dead! Harpies, witches,
angels, daemons, talking armoured bears, miniature people on dragon flies and wheeled
Mulefa are soon common-place to Lyra and each has its part to play. I found this to be a gripping book
with a great story line. I liked the way that the book had a kind of ‘sub –
story’ at the start and finish of each chapter while Lyra was in a trance during the
proper chapters. It was meant to be Lyra’s thoughts or dreams and I thought it was a
good idea. I also liked the way that each chapter had a small poem at the beginning. They
did not have much to do with the main story but it was still nice to have them there. Overall, I think Philip Pullman has
created another masterpiece. His worlds are exciting and imaginative and the story was
gripping. You care about the characters, especially Lyra, and their fate becomes important
to you which makes the book even more exciting. This book is suitable for adults and older
children alike. Dec 2001 |
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