The Amber Spyglass

[Amy Z]

Simon wrote, on HPforGU:

>How The Amber Spyglass won the children's award I will never know. My
>thoughts on that book are probably best reserved for a different list 
>as it is way OT for here and we now have the HpforGU OT Chatter 
>group, available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter, 
>for that kind of thing I should probably do it their, if anywhere.

Okay, Simon, you're on!

No, I'm not going to argue that AS was the best British children's 
book of the year--how would I know?--nor that it's better than GoF--I 
can't make comparisons like that and don't really want to stretch my 
brain, or mangle my loyalties, trying to.  Nor am I going to defend 
any kind of award; I was serious when I pointed out how totally 
bullshit the Grammys are (the neglect of Dylan being just one 
egregious piece of evidence), and that goes for every award I've ever 
heard of.  I just want to know what you don't like about it.  I think 
it (or more properly, the trilogy taken as a whole) is one of the best 
books I've ever read.  Certainly in my children's all-time top 3.  
Uh, can I count all 4 HP as 1?

Here, in a nutshell, are a few of my reasons:

1. It articulates large chunks of my theology with power and grace.  I 
would preach on it, but I can't figure out how to do it without giving 
away the end.  Instead, I recommend it to everyone in my church 
whether they ask or not.  Abuse of power comes as no surprise.
2. Daemons.
3. Powerful, intelligent, fully-developed-as-characters, wise girls 
and women, without any condescension or second thought.  I think PP is 
free of the usual sexism that infects most of us, and it comes through 
in his writing without any sense of self-conscious effort on his part. 
 E.g. Lyra, Mary, all of the witches, even Mrs. Coulter (who manages 
to evade every evil-woman cliche)...there are so many that it is 
beyond a list of acceptable-to-feminists characters--it's pervasive.
4. How many children's authors quote Blake, Milton, Rilke, and Ashbery 
in their epigraphs?  (He gets extra points for hitting two of my very 
favorite poets, Blake and Rilke.)
5. It has two of the most frightening scenes I've ever read: the one 
where they find Tony Makarios and the one at Bolvangar where they 
almost separate Lyra and Pan (both from GC).  Why is this a reason to 
love it, you ask?  Because when I opened the book I had never heard of 
a daemon, and by page 200 I knew so well what it meant to have one 
that I shook and wept all the way through "The Lost Boy" as if someone 
had done to me what they did to Tony.  How the hell does PP do that?  
I take everything I read to heart (at least, everything good), but 
this experience took the cake.
6. Two extremely passionate, serious 12 year olds whose passions and 
seriousness are believable.  
7. The way it deals with death, and the respect it has for the view 
that dissolving into the universe is a better fate than living forever 
in a nonphysical state.  Unlike Mrs. Coulter, and like most of the 
ghosts, I'd rather dissolve.  "Take me back, O hills I love" 
(traditional Appalachian song).  That whole loving and celebratory 
attitude toward the physical world...but this is all wrapped up in 
reason #1.
8. The message that stories can save us, from death, from despair, 
from meaninglessness.  And that one of our tasks in this life is to 
live in such a way that we could tell true stories about the world--to 
pay that kind of attention.

I should go to ten, but it's 12:30 a.m. here and I do have a life, 
believe it or not.

What's the problem, in your opinion?

And why am I bringing this subject up here when I could do it on the 
Dark Materials Yahoo Group and avoid the argument?  Must be itching 
for a fight.

;-)
Amy