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Tuesday 16 February 2010

If you thought you were a bad parent, look at these guys

Having spent hours on a train last week gave me more time to read than usual, and got me right back into the habit. So I shall start boring you with that, if that's okay.

Because there's really nothing else going on. I don't want to talk about half term. I don't want to talk about what the Lattes did with my make-up while I was trying to sneak a half hour's work in. But you have imaginations and experience. You know what happened without me having to tell you.

Have you read Philip Pullman's Northern Lights? I do hope so. You must have, it's been out so long, and I'm so late to it. Anyway I'm just about to tell you what happens in it, so you might want to leave quietly.

I've had a copy throwing about the house for ages, and had put off reading it because I'd heard so much about Pullman's Anti-Church Agenda and I didn't really want to be anti-preached at. But eventually it wore me down, and Eldest saw it on the sofa, and looked so impressed, and asked if that was the book she'd heard about with all the ice and the witches and the armoured bears. I had to agree that sounded pretty exciting.

As for the Anti Church sentiments in Pullman's book, I was almost disappointed to find them tacked on at the end in a bit of exposition: "And it was all the Church's doing, you know." "Really?" Phew. I thought there was going to be actual brainwashing.

It's difficult not to think about this trilogy alongside the Harry Potter books, because there was such a fuss about them both within the same period of years. But Harry Potter had that old fairy story necessity - the gentle, kind but conveniently dead mother. In fairy stories, the bereaved child may have trials to face, but it does so with true and noble blood running through its veins.

For Lyra Belacqua the truth is far more sinister. The invented fairytale parents are ripped away partway through the book to reveal her true origins: unscrupulous, morally challenged, intellectually driven parents who are still alive. The glamorous, evil stepmother she flees turns out to be her mother. Lyra is alone, without the true and noble blood she believed she had, and which we expect as readers.

What her mother is trying to do is separate children from their souls - their daemons, which appear at their side constantly in animal form. Just a simple operation - snap! - and the child is 'set free'. It's a horrific concept for Lyra, and a murderous one in most cases. And it reminded me of a short story I read recently by the horror writer Thomas Ligotti. In Purity, a boy's father conducts experiments, removing from his son the belief that the attic is haunted and placing the by-product in a jar. At the end of the story a door-to-door evangelist is found in their cellar, drained of his belief, in a state unrecognisable as life or death.

(To be honest, I wish I hadn't read that story. That was a bad experiment on my part too. Did I learn nothing from staying up too late to watch television as a child?)

Anyway I did love Northern Lights, a page-turning riot of cold and snow and ice and glamour and science. And grubby-kneed childhood snatched away, and turned into a fight for freedom. And bears, and lost love, and imposing colleges with mysterious Masters who put poison in wine bottles, and hiding in cupboards, and stolen boats, and perilous balloon rides. I have the other two books in the trilogy all ready. -

19 comments:

  1. His Dark Materials are fabulous.

    I really wanna read Purity now!

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  2. I've read the Lyra books and really enjoyed them. I'm a big fan of children's books with daring heroines. The Subtle Knife (I think the 2nd one?) was a big disappointment in that respect though as Lyra spent half of it in a drugged sleep in a cave while Will had all the adventures. Boo.
    Louise

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  3. I too like children's books, if only to see what my two are reading. I loved the frist two of the Dark Materials stories, but lost interest in the third 'though I did finish it. Just as with C.S.Lewis' Narnia stories I'm afraid the god problems passed me by. I just thought them good yarns. Harry Potter inspired Eldest to start reading properly aged almost 7 so I think they're wonderful! Have you tried Artemis Fowl? Funnier than all the above and very exciting.

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  4. You may bore me with book talk all you like - I have a couple of hours commuting every day and am always after reading recommendations.

    Not sure why, but Philip Pullman has passed me by (must have been too busy over at Hogwarts) so I shall have to remedy this.

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  5. I did read Northern Lights and very much enjoyed it. I didn't get onto the second and third books but we do have them on the shelf.

    Shame about the film adaptation though :-(

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  6. Sounds exhausting, although I almost read it to spite the people who were sending me hysterical warnings not to read it.

    But I think I need something with gardens and sunshine and countryside rambles and maybe the wacky little caper. Yes, that sounds about right.

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  7. Oh my word, I can't wait to hear what you think of the next two books (I loved them but frequently found myself thinking "Is he really saying what I THINK he's saying??????")

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  8. Wait till you get to the crazy diamond body-shaped cow people with wheels instead of feet. I am not joking.

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  9. See all this passed me buy in my post baby and toddler years which are just a fog as far as reading is concerned. I think I may be coming in to the light over the next year or so

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  10. I think it's a fab Trilogy, regardless of the author's idea of the Church... (his sentiments are much more apparent in the2nd book)... the idea of this knife that cuts portals through world... it's genius and brilliant and I wished it were possible.

    Love YAL (young adult literature... just learned the term.). Have you got to the Twilight books yet? YOU MUST. I resisted for a couple of years and now I can't recommend them enough for pure escapism. Ah to be a teenager again...

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  11. Stop trying to pass me on Goodreads.

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  12. Just think yourself lucky that you don't live in oxford... I can't find one of those dials anywhere, not even at the steampunk exhibition. And when you read The Subtle Knife, you might understand why I spend so much time lurking about in Sunderland Avenue ...xx

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  13. I was confused for a bit because it's called the Golden Compass here, but those books are amazing. And you're right about the parents -- it plays more and more of a role, as you'll see. As for the preaching -- I sort of ignored it, just like I ignore all the christian preaching in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They're really good books.

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  14. I read the series last year and loved it loved it loved. Didn't find it as aggressively anti-God as critics suggested. Found the quality of the writing and the tone of the epic way beyond Rowling. Will definitely be allowing suns to read- much discussion here.

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  15. Haven't read 'em. Bad bookseller. Bad.

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  16. I've got a similar lurking copy that has been looking at me from its shelf for years - you may just have inspired me to get in down and read it. Or at least take it to bed with me, read a page and a half and then fall asleep. That's what normally happens...

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  17. Oh, I'm so envious of you - you've got the uttely wonderful experience of two more Dark Materials to go! I LOVE these books with a passion (3rd is my favourite, despite one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I have EVER read in any literature anywhere). Lucky, lucky you!

    Jo xx

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  18. I really should give this another go. I have seen the film, but was underwhelmed by it. I couldn't get into the book at first, but will definitely try it again.

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  19. I have never read Northern Lights - I did start years ago while at college but I never did manage to finish it. Luckily, I haven't seen the film (which wasn't too great apparently) so I'll definitely try and pick this one up at some stage :)

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