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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 23, 2019 17:58:49 GMT
I finished the audiobook last week...
and I need to talk about the book
Anyone else want to join in?
(there may be spoilers!)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2019 18:06:36 GMT
Me me me! I finished reading it yesterday. I left the last two chapters for over a week as I didn't want it to be over.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 23, 2019 18:15:51 GMT
It was the ending that most frustrated me about it.
When you listen on Audible, you aren't always aware quite how far you have got or how little there is left. And I really didn't feel Pullman had earned the right to end at that point.
There wasn't enough tension to make me really excited for the next step and there was insufficient resolution to make me satisfied with what had happened up to that point.
It was, like Belle Sauvage, too episodic at times - with single section characters appearing never to re-emerge.
I do want the final book to appear - and quickly - because he has to finish this story properly. Yes, second books in trilogies are difficult because you need to leave the audience both wanting more and feeling satisfied with what has just concluded. And I was just not convinced that the narrative had reached a natural stopping point. It felt more of stepping stone than a setting up of something thrilling and exciting to come
No doubt the final book will resolve many of my concerns - but I was left feeling frustrated and cheated rather than excited for what is to come.
There are many things about the book that I did like - Pullman has a great imagination. And perhaps I need to go back and re-read the original trilogy - as that was, obviously, more heavily referenced in this book.
One other concern is that it really isn't a book that a child should pick up without an adult in their life being aware of the contents. Whilst this is not being promoted as a book for children, it is inevitable (particularly with the BBC version about to hit the screens) that children will want to explore the full set of books. But it is a far more adult tale - with one very difficult section (which was well handled in terms of the writing - but could still well be inappropriate for younger readers)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2019 18:20:54 GMT
I liked it. In a frustrating way in that I wanted Pan and Lyra to find each other, and I wanted Malcolm (I love him) to find Lyra, and I want to know what happens to Alice. It's frustrating that everything is unresolved and difficult and awful, but I think that's still good.
I absolutely don't want to see Will again. I love Will, but I think it would be a cop out to somehow reunite him. They were separated for ever at the end of HDM, and they need to stay that way. He talked about 'if we marry other people we have to not compare...' etc, and I think that's important.
I also loved Nur Hada and the way she was used. She's the Grenfell Tower girl who was added to raise money for Grenfell, and I love that he made her significant and important.
The thing that stuck out for me is the comparison between the scene where Lyra feels awful at having inadvertently taken that fire guy to his death by super-energy-joining-to-his-daemon experiment with a mad scientist, to the scene where she inadvertently took Roger to his death in a super-energy-splitting-from-his-daemon with a mad scientist.
I wasn't aware that it was being marketed at children particularly. I think there were lots of things in the original books which were pretty horrific anyway for children, and I think any young children would have stopped already in at least book 3 of HDM, which was very heavy on the politics/religion/philosophy aspects.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 23, 2019 19:54:16 GMT
I suspect that Pullman doesn't get much of an edit these days (in the same way that happened to Rowling) and so the books are not as tight as they could/should be
I was delighted to find out who Alice was as a grown-up - that was a lovely revelation.
When it comes to the audiobook, Michael Sheen was superb in Belle Sauvage. It was an extraordinarily good performance. But here, he tends to fall back on comic voices too much - particularly with the elderly characters (the Patriarch and the Princess) where he just puts on silly old voices and it loses credibility as a result. He is still good but not great as he was in the first book.
I hope the final book comes out with reasonable haste. He owes us a satisfying resolution with real tension and drama. Doesn't need to be a happy ending. But it must feel like it is a complete piece of storytelling. Pullman is a master storyteller - he just didn't fully win me over this time and that is probably at the heart of my frustration
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Post by floorshow on Oct 24, 2019 20:55:03 GMT
Argh, just lost a long reply typed on a phone... Will try and remember all that detail on a laptop tomorrow.
I've really enjoyed both, he has left himself a lot to do in the last one though. There were a couple of things about SC that didn't quite gel for me -
The villains aren't particularly well drawn, they better have a decent motivation for the last book. Ideally, something that ties back into the events in the Amber Spyglass - didn't the Authority actually die?
The 2 miners on a boat. Bit sudden and unlikely turn of events and heavy exposition!
But there's so much to like and Pullman is so easy to read, I really disliked his Jesus/Christ book so was unduly worried going into these. This one is a heartbreaker.
I heartily recommend Adam Buxton's podcast - always great but Pullman was a recent guest and talks about Lyra and daemons in some depth. Apparently, the third book isn't even started yet.
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