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| The Amber Spy Glass,
Philip Pullman |
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| Books,
Justin Harries,
15 January 2001 |
Rating: F5
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The Amber Spyglass is the final instalment in kids author Philip Pullmans Dark Materials trilogy. Children's novels have come a long since our heyday of the Famous Five - lucky little bleeders. Goosebumps seem to be your rather Dahlesque end of the market, though recently I've seen some pretty bizarre TV tie-ins - Blair Witch books, and, most strange, young reader novilisations of X-Files episodes such as Grotesque, featuring a dodgy serial killer with the habit of puncturing his victim's eyeballs with a Stanley knife. And they say kids grow up too fast!
Well Pullman's books, whilst appealing to the most bloody minded of child, are certainly aimed at those who like their gore mingled with some good old fashioned theological debate. Thomas the Tank engine this ain't. Rather more the subversive offspring of Harry Potter and Frederic Nietzche. I mean, what other kids book takes as its theme the destruction of a corrupt God? Across the breadth of many worlds a battle rages against The Authority and the reign of Heaven. Most important to both sides is the child Lyra, a new Eve, who emanates from a steam punkish Victorian alternate universe. Adding to the mix is a knife that allows its possessor to cut between dimensions and the mind bending science of Quantum physics, here tied indefatically to the development of the Human consciousness.
A massive cast of memorable characters are up for the ride, who, in the grand tradition of fantasy fiction are always making appearances when most needed. Gay angles, armoured bears, beautiful witches, soul-sucking sceptres, all are on hand to lend colour to Pullman's complex yet consistent universe (or universes). The amount of detail invested is often head spinningly rich, from Lyras world of atomic powered Zeppelins and to the peaceful land of Mulefa, a wheeled race. If there's one element that pushes apart Pullman's work from that of other chidrens fantasy work it is the notable lack of overt sentimentality. We get to like the characters a lot, but this doest stop Pullman from simply killing them to investing them with a darker side. Even our heroine, although good at heart, has a tendency to mirror the deviousness of her mother, one of the books arch villains. This element of near distrust echoes right through the book, characters who seem bad may have honourable intentions, and through out there's that niggling feeling that the good guys may have got it wrong. As it's all the rage for us oldies to consume kids culture I can imagine seeing this tomb being well thumbed by the commuting masses yet here it makes sense. In my younger days I lapped stuff like this up so voraciously to the point of obsession obviously, on the strength of my reaction to this, I've got a lot of growing up to do.
Scholastic Point
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