Other Children's and YA Books

[lithorose]

Currently reading the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. A complete stranger came up to me in the bookstore and recommended them- which of course adds about twenty points to the *must-read* meter.:D

And they are great. Snarky, witty, and oddly endearing. Even though the storylines aren't anything we haven't seen before (and they don't have quite the scope of Potter), they're told with, um, verve and wit.

I'm also reading His Dark Materials, but am witholding all conversation until I've finished them.

[Elwen]

Well, I hope you come back and discuss HDM with us (here or at the Blue Place). I have mixed feelings about them, but I am not going to say more now! How far have you got with them?

[lithorose]

I'm about to start the third book. Our library had them all (it's a big shock as our county's not, relatively speaking, very literate.)

Rest assured, when I do finally post, it will be very long and probably convoluted.:D

[Elwen]

Good. :D


Nice to see proper posts in this forum fcor a change, instead of spam... :)

[lithorose]

Done! I'm not posting my lengthy thoughts on HDM just yet; I have to order them first as they're a bunch of loose wandering notes. But I will say I like the Bartimaeus Trilogy much better, even though they the world is much smaller than Pullman's.

[Elwen]

hmmmmm ... curious about your thoughts.

I won't post my opinion just yet: don't want to influence you. I'll only say that I can think of plenty of books I like better....

[lithorose]

Be forewarned that there is a rather free-flowing mixture of religion, literary reaction, and opinion. And it probably comes across as more angry than it really is. And I really hate to not post anything until I've read not only one whole book but three, but as he seemed to be developing a single thought in three books, I had to see where it went before I could comment.

The books, as books, are average. His writing style could be quite strong, but especially in the first book he is talking too young for the audience- too short sentences and summaries. Fortunately this improves a lot by the third book.

On Daemons-
The idea of daemons is a hybrid between Native American spirit guides and familiars. It's kind of fun, but I didn't see anything tremendously original in it.

The daemon seems to function as a metaphor for the person's heart or spirit. This is slightly better than separating a person's soul from them as a lot of fantasy seems to do these days (since the soul is the self).

There is buried in here the idea that humanity's spirit is animal in nature, which I actually don't have a problem with, if it's given proper perspective. What I do have a problem with, however, is his idea that daemons find a fixed shape, and that it happens at puberty. I really, really dislike the idea that people become one thing, and that's it. It precludes change, which is really one of the best things that humans get to do. People do change as adults, though granted it isn't that often that someone changes drastically. There seems to be a metaphor at work here that the daemon's fixed shape is one being happy with one's self, but this is obviously not so. A daemon isn't a metaphor for a person's temperament, as those are usually set at birth, not puberty. In all he takes puberty much too seriously. That or I magically missed "puberty", which I rather doubt.;)


On Religion-
The phrase "Pope John Calvin" pretty well sums up his entire stance on Christianity, doesn't it? The idea that Calvin and the Catholic Church can coexist is pretty silly, or that Calvin (or, here, one of his inheritors) would accept the office of Pope rather than obliterate it... ludicrous. (In fact it seems like the only actual bit of humor in the books.)

I can't decide if he is just ignorant of the Church as a whole, or just really angry, or both. For my own part I found the anti-religious attitude rather laughable until midway through the third book, where the cumulative amount of non-truth really did start to make me angry. I was raised evangelical with fundamentalist leanings, so I think I know something about legalistic views of life, and the sinfulness of flesh, but Pullman is just so abhorrently WRONG about Christianity's nature. I cannot believe that even the most conservative of Christians would EVER go back and undo the events of the original Fall, or even attempt to wipe Christ out of the CHRIST-ian church, which is what their preventing another Fall would do. The Christian church is riddled with sin (because it's composed of sinful people), but there's a nature to its central tenets that even legalistic authorianism can't erase. He almost seems unaware that God is capable of love, and that it is in fact the driving force of all that He is.

Not that it's even possible to undo the Fall or kill God. God is smarter and far more powerful than that. Pullman sort of skirts this issue by presenting an "Authority" that is obviously not God, and which can only be seen as the Church's interpretation of God.

It's rather telling, actually, that Pullman tries so hard to work against Christianity and arrives in a strange way at the Christian truth anyway- the universal law of love (from which both Law and Mercy flow, which he neglects) and the inadequacy of the Law, and the need for a savior to free them from the Law. However, I would stop short of those that say these books actually espouse Christianity- his universe is still void of a God with any personality. There's a certain irony in that Will and Lyra vow so seriously to uphold the Truth, that is, become slaves of truth, but it's a truth with an inadequate source. I find the idea of a personality dissolving into the rocks and blades of grass downright depressing and impossible. A self is only a self, not many selves. His world lacks a great appraiser to respond to us, just as it lacks a point of origin and any underlying why to its statement that, basically, the world loves itself. Humanity has an inherent, deep-rooted feeling that we are an inadequate answer to ourselves.

Nor do I like that he sets up a dichotomy in which the characters must choose either obedience or wisdom. This is not true to life and it is as arbitrary and dogmatic as a set of laws dictated by an authoritarian God. For someone that thinks the Church is composed of blind devotees, his characters show a downright disturbing amount of blind devotion to their feelings and these vague things they just know they have to do. Some angels come along and say it's all a lie, and no one questions whether or not they might also be lying?

The book functions best as an update of Romantic ideas. The love of the material world and distrust of authority, the reliance on Milton and his noble Satan acting like Prometheus and giving humanity freedom of choice (as though God hadn't already given it to them). Unfortunately it ends with flabby optimism just like the Romantics. Love is great, but what happens when it grows cold? What happens when someone you love wrongs you? It is as incomplete as the Law it rejects.

The third book rather falls apart, leaving a lot of unfinished thoughts, such as what happened 300 years ago to start all these problems in the worlds? Presumably it was Milton writing Paradise Lost, or the emergence of science and Newton's Laws. But it is never adressed in the book. Besides this, there are far too many coincidences. There are millions and millions of worlds, and we see about five. I realize there is only so much that will fit in a book or three, but everyone seems to stumble upon the same open doors far too easily. Will has an excuse he can feel worlds he's familiar with, but the others don't.

---
Well, that's the basics of my opinions on the books. I do have to be grateful, for while reading them I realized that Law proceeds from God's love as much as Mercy does. It just leaves me wondering whether anyone can really be that much in the dark as to what Christianity is, or whether he neglected to give his church any good qualities out of a desire to set Law against Love? I want to say it's the latter, but it would be drawing a conclusion that isn't in the books, and he specifically mentions the Christian Church, which would only lead average readers to conclude that's what he means.

(BTW I'll probably also post this at the blue place in a day or two since it gets so much more foot traffic.)

[Elwen]

Thanks for posting this, lithorose.... I left my answer (for more people to see) over at the COE, not least because I realised that I had never posted my opinions of the books there..... your post is such an interesting read.... brought it all back to me :)