Book Review: The Amber Spyglass, part 1
Oct. 16th, 2025 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI’m sure you’ve all been waiting with baited breath for my account of rereading Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass. Would I still hate it as much as I did when I first read it at the age of twelve?
Well, no, but largely because when I was twelve I hated The Amber Spyglass with the fiery passion of a thousand deeply betrayed suns. It’s impossible to feel betrayed in the same way upon rereading a book, since after all you basically know what’s coming and have decided to inflict it upon yourself again of your own free will.
I still hate it enough that it’s going to take at least two posts to pour out all my loathing, though.
But before I begin to tear this book to shreds, I must give it a couple of kudos. First: my god can Pullman write an amazing setpiece. He’s so goddamn talented and that’s part of what makes this book so infuriating; it couldn't be so maddening if it wasn't in some ways strong. I read this book one time as a kid and never reread because I loathed it so much, but some of the scenes were so powerful that they’ve never left my head. Roger leaving the land of the dead. The ancient angel that is the Authority blowing away in the breeze. Lyra touching Will’s lips before they admit their love.
(Okay, I remembered that one partly because it caused me such outrage, and I remembered it slightly incorrectly: I forgot that Lyra actually touched Will’s lips with a succulent red fruit because of COURSE Pullman is going full Garden of Eden with this. But still.)
Second, although I’ve spent decades complaining about the wheeled elephants in this book, they’re actually pretty cool. Mary Malone is having her own little portal fantasy adventure/first contact story, meeting these elephant/antelope type creatures who manipulate objects with their trunks and ride around on giant seedpods shaped like wheels. I love that for her. It’s very fun.
The problem is that Mary Malone’s portal first contact story continually mucks up the pacing of a book that already has big pacing issues. We’ll be at a moment of high tension, and then suddenly in the next chapter we pop over to Mary Malone having a chill time learning about mulefa culture, and in itself it’s interesting – but as a chapter that is interrupting the flow of the narrative, it’s maddening.
This is especially true because this book takes so darn long to get off the ground. Lyra spends the first twelve chapters in a drugged sleep under Mrs. Coulter’s watch, and the story remains in a holding pattern until Will finally arrives to wake her up.
While asleep, Lyra has been having a chat with her old friend Roger in the land of the dead, and she wakes up with a mission: she needs to go apologize to Roger! Right this very minute! Sure, the tiny Gallivespian spies who helped save Lyra from Mrs. Coulter want Will and Lyra to head off to help Lord Asriel in the war against God post-haste, but apologizing to Roger in the land of the dead has to take precedence.
This is one of the parts of the book I remembered incorrectly, and what I remembered made more sense, frankly. In my memory, Lyra promised Roger that she and Will would release him from the land of the dead, which would indeed have given an urgent reason why Lyra needs to go to the land of the dead right away, as “I want to apologize” does not.
The other maddening thing about this section is that, although Will and Lyra never do end up going to Lord Asriel, they never actually give or even think a reason why they don’t want to do this, even though there is a VERY OBVIOUS reason for them to avoid Lord Asriel. Last time that Lyra took a friend to Lord Asriel, Lord Asriel ended up killing that friend to rip a hole between worlds.
In my review of The Subtle Knife, I pondered whether Pullman would ever unpack the fact that his good guys are “catastrophically failing at the Kantian maxim to treat people as ends not means.” Having finished The Amber Spyglass, I can say definitively that the answer is no.
At the end of The Golden Compass, Lord Asriel kills an innocent child to rip a hole between worlds. This hole unleashes a horde of Spectres in the world of Cittagazze (a consequence Lord Asriel almost certainly doesn’t know about) and also causes the rapid melting of the arctic in his own world, leading to massive floods with (one presumes) the usual massive death that attends large and sudden floods.
But let’s leave aside the Spectres and the floods for the moment. Let’s go back to the murder of Lyra’s friend Roger. Lord Asriel’s stated aim is to defeat the Kingdom of Heaven and build the Republic of Heaven in its place, and his first action toward this goal is murdering a child. Is he building the Republic of Heaven or the city of Omelas?
No one ever asks this question. Even Lyra, who spends a certain amount of time obsessing about accidentally leading Roger to his death, spends no time thinking about who actually caused his death (Lord Asriel) or whether a man who would, I repeat, kill an innocent child to further his own ends is a man who is worth following.
Pullman, I think, is the kind of atheist who sees that the belief in God can be very destructive, but somehow has failed to notice that any kind of fanatical “ends justify the means” belief can be just as destructive, whether there’s a god involved or not.
Well, no, but largely because when I was twelve I hated The Amber Spyglass with the fiery passion of a thousand deeply betrayed suns. It’s impossible to feel betrayed in the same way upon rereading a book, since after all you basically know what’s coming and have decided to inflict it upon yourself again of your own free will.
I still hate it enough that it’s going to take at least two posts to pour out all my loathing, though.
But before I begin to tear this book to shreds, I must give it a couple of kudos. First: my god can Pullman write an amazing setpiece. He’s so goddamn talented and that’s part of what makes this book so infuriating; it couldn't be so maddening if it wasn't in some ways strong. I read this book one time as a kid and never reread because I loathed it so much, but some of the scenes were so powerful that they’ve never left my head. Roger leaving the land of the dead. The ancient angel that is the Authority blowing away in the breeze. Lyra touching Will’s lips before they admit their love.
(Okay, I remembered that one partly because it caused me such outrage, and I remembered it slightly incorrectly: I forgot that Lyra actually touched Will’s lips with a succulent red fruit because of COURSE Pullman is going full Garden of Eden with this. But still.)
Second, although I’ve spent decades complaining about the wheeled elephants in this book, they’re actually pretty cool. Mary Malone is having her own little portal fantasy adventure/first contact story, meeting these elephant/antelope type creatures who manipulate objects with their trunks and ride around on giant seedpods shaped like wheels. I love that for her. It’s very fun.
The problem is that Mary Malone’s portal first contact story continually mucks up the pacing of a book that already has big pacing issues. We’ll be at a moment of high tension, and then suddenly in the next chapter we pop over to Mary Malone having a chill time learning about mulefa culture, and in itself it’s interesting – but as a chapter that is interrupting the flow of the narrative, it’s maddening.
This is especially true because this book takes so darn long to get off the ground. Lyra spends the first twelve chapters in a drugged sleep under Mrs. Coulter’s watch, and the story remains in a holding pattern until Will finally arrives to wake her up.
While asleep, Lyra has been having a chat with her old friend Roger in the land of the dead, and she wakes up with a mission: she needs to go apologize to Roger! Right this very minute! Sure, the tiny Gallivespian spies who helped save Lyra from Mrs. Coulter want Will and Lyra to head off to help Lord Asriel in the war against God post-haste, but apologizing to Roger in the land of the dead has to take precedence.
This is one of the parts of the book I remembered incorrectly, and what I remembered made more sense, frankly. In my memory, Lyra promised Roger that she and Will would release him from the land of the dead, which would indeed have given an urgent reason why Lyra needs to go to the land of the dead right away, as “I want to apologize” does not.
The other maddening thing about this section is that, although Will and Lyra never do end up going to Lord Asriel, they never actually give or even think a reason why they don’t want to do this, even though there is a VERY OBVIOUS reason for them to avoid Lord Asriel. Last time that Lyra took a friend to Lord Asriel, Lord Asriel ended up killing that friend to rip a hole between worlds.
In my review of The Subtle Knife, I pondered whether Pullman would ever unpack the fact that his good guys are “catastrophically failing at the Kantian maxim to treat people as ends not means.” Having finished The Amber Spyglass, I can say definitively that the answer is no.
At the end of The Golden Compass, Lord Asriel kills an innocent child to rip a hole between worlds. This hole unleashes a horde of Spectres in the world of Cittagazze (a consequence Lord Asriel almost certainly doesn’t know about) and also causes the rapid melting of the arctic in his own world, leading to massive floods with (one presumes) the usual massive death that attends large and sudden floods.
But let’s leave aside the Spectres and the floods for the moment. Let’s go back to the murder of Lyra’s friend Roger. Lord Asriel’s stated aim is to defeat the Kingdom of Heaven and build the Republic of Heaven in its place, and his first action toward this goal is murdering a child. Is he building the Republic of Heaven or the city of Omelas?
No one ever asks this question. Even Lyra, who spends a certain amount of time obsessing about accidentally leading Roger to his death, spends no time thinking about who actually caused his death (Lord Asriel) or whether a man who would, I repeat, kill an innocent child to further his own ends is a man who is worth following.
Pullman, I think, is the kind of atheist who sees that the belief in God can be very destructive, but somehow has failed to notice that any kind of fanatical “ends justify the means” belief can be just as destructive, whether there’s a god involved or not.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-16 07:41 pm (UTC)I was also bored and annoyed by the mulefa plotline as it had nothing to do with anything, but in retrospect it's the best part of the book.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 01:38 pm (UTC)The mulefa plotline is great as its own thing but SO annoying when you're trying to find out what is going to happen to Will and Lyra. The kids have gone down to the land of the dead and they're just about to cross the river and BAM, we're back with the wheeled elephants again.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-16 08:02 pm (UTC)HUH. I've actually never read the books/seen the adaptation(s) and so I don't know what I thought this series was about but that is... not what I expected.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 03:15 pm (UTC)(I think the Church in Lyra's world is the unholy lovechild of the Catholic and Protestant churches. Catholic levels of bureaucracy, Protestant levels of unable to enjoy anything, there was a Pope John Calvin who moved the Magisterium to Zurich.)
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 04:21 pm (UTC)I really liked it! I listened to the audiobook because Michael Sheen narrated it, which was 10/10 in itself, and I ended up liking the book because it was basically a child spy story. Didn't really feel inclined to read the next book in the prequel/sequel(?) trilogy or original, though.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-16 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-16 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 03:09 pm (UTC)Because in war, generals do all the time sacrifice soldiers, they do all the time treat people as means not ends. And we can pout and say, "Well there just shouldn't be wars"--which, true! But there are! Just like there really are dictators and people willing to set up concentration camps, etc. So in that case.... But sending soldiers to storm Normandy Beach feels different from human sacrificing a child to further your goals. But maybe Pullman doesn't think so. WHO KNOWS.
**I've read like five pages of an excerpt from Critique of Pure Reason for some college class and can't remember one word of it.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 04:30 pm (UTC)(Source: being dragged through Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten [Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals] at a liberal arts college, lol)
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-16 09:37 pm (UTC)I just can't get over how loudly and often he slagged off C. S. Lewis for didacticism when The Amber Spyglass drops so many anvils on its reader's head.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 03:10 pm (UTC)It's only wrong if They're doing it. If I'm doing it, it's a totally different thing. --And they really do seem to think it's a totally different thing!
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 04:42 pm (UTC)I also think Milton actually has a lot more to do with HDM than Narnia, but that gets way more complicated.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 07:14 pm (UTC)And it produces an identically obnoxious experience for the reader!
no subject
Date: 2025-10-20 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-21 12:40 pm (UTC)