Book Review: The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

Synopsis: Lyra returns in the second novel of the His Dark Materials trilogy. This time she is paired with Will Parry, a twelve-year-old from (what is apparently) our world. They work together to procure a special weapon and find Will's father.

I rather like the character of Will Parry. He's the first character to not turn me off within a hundred pages of meeting him. One thing I noticed was that it seems someone told Pullman Lyra wasn't very likable after The Golden Compass came out. He spends a lot of time having secondary characters swear that they'd never met a more noble and wonderful child than Lyra.

Anyway, the major problem the book has is that there is no plot. The children want to get the subtle knife and find Will's father. That's it. There is no climax. There is no rising action. There are two goals, both of which resolve themselves with minimal effort by the protagonists.

The issue of religion is much larger in this book. Before I read the series, one of my friends mentioned that it wasn't anti-religious; it was satanic. I have to agree. We find our characters deciding that when the Authority (God) defeated the rebellious angels, the wrong side won. As I've said before, such a storyline doesn't immediately turn me away. But Pullman's handling is just so dark, cynical, and pedantic. I really would prefer to review this book without discussing the religion, but it's the proverbial 5000 pound elephant. I mean, at one point Ms. Coulter is torturing a witch and says, "In this church we have a thousand years of experience with torture." Everyone who is at all for religion is completely and unabashedly evil.

And that's just plain unbelieveable. One of the characters is a former nun who is now a physicist. She discovers dark matter (or Dust, as Lyra's world calls it) and learns to communicate with it. She quickly learns that the intelligence communicating through the dust belongs to the rebellious angels. Or as he nun training would have phrase it--the Devil. Now, she left the church because of a lack of faith. But when the Devil starts telling her what to do, she doesn't bat an eye. But, then again, she is a good guy, and therefore (apparently) hates God (not just disbelieves).

The major anti-religious/satanic problem with the book is that none of it is original or even well done. Pullman's argument is that God and religion strive to take away all the pleasure of life and control people (why we're never told). And all the conflict and strife of the world is the result of religion. I won't argue that religion doesn't cause strife. It does. But to suggest that it's even the primary cause is simplification ad absurdum. It completely ignores all other political, social, and economic roots.

The story also follows The Golden Compass in poor worldbuilding. The only world that seems at all fleshed out is (surprisingly) our world. The world of Cittagazze, where the subtle knife was forged, is a world of children. Soul-eating Specters haunt the world devouring adults (except where the plot says they shouldn't, at which point they are powerless thralls or oddly absent). This has gone on for three hundred years, we're told. Yet there are still children and perishable foods that the children scavenge.

The witches are one big deus ex machina (Or perhaps it should be lamia ex machina since we are killing God). At one point Lyra exclaims (to the effect of), "Isn't it lucky they showed up just in time to save us!"

Overall, the book left me with a bad taste. None of it sparkled, it had no plot, and what story there was was overburdened by Pullman beating his dead horse with another dead horse.