The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3) (v. 3) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream milky with meltwater splashed and where doves and linnets flew among..." (more)
Key Phrases: lodestone resonator, adamant tower, monkey daemon, Lord Roke, Father Gomez, Lady Salmakia (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From the very start of its very first scene, The Amber Spyglass will set hearts fluttering and minds racing. All we'll say here is that we immediately discover who captured Lyra at the end of The Subtle Knife, though we've yet to discern whether this individual's intent is good, evil, or somewhere in between. We also learn that Will still possesses the blade that allows him to cut between worlds, and has been joined by two winged companions who are determined to escort him to Lord Asriel's mountain redoubt. The boy, however, has only one goal in mind--to rescue his friend and return to her the alethiometer, an instrument that has revealed so much to her and to readers of The Golden Compass and its follow-up. Within a short time, too, we get to experience the "tingle of the starlight" on Serafina Pekkala's skin as she seeks out a famished Iorek Byrnison and enlists him in Lord Asriel's crusade:

A complex web of thoughts was weaving itself in the bear king's mind, with more strands in it than hunger and satisfaction. There was the memory of the little girl Lyra, whom he had named Silvertongue, and whom he had last seen crossing the fragile snow bridge across a crevasse in his own island of Svalbard. Then there was the agitation among the witches, the rumors of pacts and alliances and war; and then there was the surpassingly strange fact of this new world itself, and the witch's insistence that there were many more such worlds, and that the fate of them all hung somehow on the fate of the child.

Meanwhile, two factions of the Church are vying to reach Lyra first. One is even prepared to give a priest "preemptive absolution" should he succeed in committing mortal sin. For these tyrants, killing this girl is no less than "a sacred task."

In the final installment of his trilogy, Philip Pullman has set himself the highest hurdles. He must match its predecessors in terms of sheer action and originality and resolve the enigmas he already created. The good news is that there is no critical bad news--not that The Amber Spyglass doesn't contain standoffs and close calls galore. (Who would have it otherwise?) But Pullman brings his audacious revision of Paradise Lost to a conclusion that is both serene and devastating. In prose that is transparent yet lyrical and 3-D, the author weaves in and out of his principals' thoughts. He also offers up several additional worlds. In one, Dr. Mary Malone is welcomed into an apparently simple society. The environment of the mulefa (again, we'll reveal nothing more) makes them rich in consciousness while their lives possess a slow and stately rhythm. These strange creatures can, however, be very fast on their feet (or on other things entirely) when necessary. Alas, they are on the verge of dying as Dust streams out of their idyllic landscape. Will the Oxford dark-matter researcher see her way to saving them, or does this require our young heroes? And while Mary is puzzling out a cure, Will and Lyra undertake a pilgrimage to a realm devoid of all light and hope, after having been forced into the cruelest of sacrifices--or betrayals.

Throughout his galvanizing epic, Pullman sustains scenes of fierce beauty and tenderness. He also allows us a moment or two of comic respite. At one point, for instance, Lyra's mother bullies a series of ecclesiastical underlings: "The man bowed helplessly and led her away. The guard behind her blew out his cheeks with relief." Needless to say, Mrs. Coulter is as intoxicating and fluid as ever. And can it be that we will come to admire her as she plays out her desperate endgame? In this respect, as in many others, The Amber Spyglass is truly a book of revelations, moving from darkness visible to radiant truth. --Kerry Fried

From Publishers Weekly

In concluding the spellbinding His Dark Materials trilogy, Pullman produces what may well be the most controversial children's book of recent years. The witch Serafina Pekkala, quoting an angel, sums up the central theme: "All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. The rebel angels, the followers of wisdom, have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed." Early on, this "Authority" is explicitly identified as the Judeo-Christian God, and he is far from omnipotent: his Kingdom is ruled by a regent. The cosmic battle to overthrow the Kingdom is only one of the many epic sequences in this novelAso much happens, and the action is split among so many different imagined worlds, that readers will have to work hard to keep up with Pullman. In the opening, for example, Lyra is being hidden and kept in a drugged sleep in a Himalayan cave by her mother, the beautiful and treacherous Mrs. Coulter. Will is guided by two angels across different worlds to find Lyra. The physicist and former nun, Mary Malone, sojourns in an alternatively evolved world. In yet another universe, Lord Asriel has assembled a great horde of otherworldly beings-including the vividly imagined race of haughty, hand-high warriors called GallivespiansAto bring down the Kingdom. Along the way, Pullman riffs on the elemental chords of classical myth and fairy tale. While some sections seem rushed and the prose is not always as brightly polished as fans might expect, Pullman's exuberant work stays rigorously true to its own internal structure. Stirring and highly provocative. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 518 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers; First American edition (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679879269
• ISBN-13: 978-0679879268
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (891 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #185,173 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 3 in The His Dark Materials Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and unfocused, November 21, 2000

By	E. Dalton "Reader, writer, educator, and comp... (Derry, NH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I loved "The Golden Compass." I was intrigued by "The Subtle Knife." And I tried to prepare myself to be a little disappointed by "The Amber Spyglass"-- trilogy conclusions are rarely as good as the first book. But I had hopes. The first two were so good....

This was nowhere near as good.

The various plot threads are all wrapped up, more or less. But the ending is forced. Other reviewers have pointed out the flat and inconsistent characterizations, the scattered plot, the valueless sub-threads (like Father Gomez). The useless spyglass. And even those who loved the book found the ending of the romance disappointing.

Ultimately, the book fails to deliver on the themes that were begun in "The Golden Compass," including one of the most important. Am I simply not getting it? How was Lyra's position anything comparable to Eve's? She finds love (with almost no character build up), she gives it up for the sake of the world(s). As other readers have noted, she's arguably a Christ character. But not much like Eve. Unless you count the temptation to sex (in a world with giant apple trees that contain the essence of sentience), and frankly, I don't think that was especially plausable. Eve, according to Judeo-Christian theology, succumbs to temptation (for knowledge, not sex) and gets everyone kicked out of Eden. I suppose Lyra resists temptation (to continue a relationship) to help everyone build a new Eden. But it's a tenuous connection at best, because the "only one window, not two" argument is so weak and last-minute, and she and Will can only affect one world each at best, with no way to travel between them. (And if Pullman wanted to redefine Eve to mean something else, a lot more work was needed.)

Aother of the great disappointments was the hesitant flirting with Wisdom. Evidently Pullman has come across feminist spirituality interpretations of gnostic gospels and eastern church references to a female Wisdom character (Sophia) who predates Yaweh (in some traditions). I kept waiting for him to develop this theme. Instead she (Xaphania, the only female angel) merely appears as a "Deus ex machina" and answers the kids' questions before sending them on home. I suppose Pullman realized he was getting too close to replacing a God with a Goddess, and backed down rather than give up his anti-theistic theme. I suppose that's forgivable, if all he wanted to do was write entertaining fiction. But if he wanted to actually make a point about theism, it's an act of cowardice.

Unlike most other reviewers who panned this book, I don't mind the anti-organized-religion slant. As a Quaker, I'm not much on organized religion myself. I didn't think the book is as inherently anti-Christian as some of the reviewers seemed to think, either. To my mind, Lucretia Mott had it right when she encouraged us to "doubt more, in order that we might believe more." Looking at other possible theologies can help us get at the root of what we really believe. But I think Pullman ran out of steam --or maybe even courage-- before he finished developing his ideas. This book needed at least one more major rewrite before publishing, to shake out the loose pieces and add the richness to the characters and themes that was so evident in his earlier books. Maybe Pullman was just too tired to do the necessary work. Or maybe the publisher was impatient. Or maybe Pullman himself started to lose faith in his anti-theism, and didn't have the courage to write details that would force him to acknowledge his dependency on divine powers in the story (Xaphenia, the angels, and most of all, Dust).

I gave it three stars, because it's worth reading, if you liked the first two, just to tie up the loose threads. But it's not on par with them.

69 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly amazing work of art, October 4, 2000

By	Eric Sutherland (Seattle, Wa USA) - See all my reviews

Of the books in the `His Dark Materials' trilogy; the sighs of relief, and gasps of wonder and dismay in the Golden Compass; the cliffhanging apprehension, and the extreme suspense in Subtle Knife... and of the sheer brilliance, and intense power, of The Amber Spyglass, this one tops each of them. This extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime literary work of art is most likely the most magnificent and stunningly vivid of the entire trilogy. From the first page, to the last, Phillip Pullman grips your imagination and your entire being throughout the entire book, never misses a beat, and never lets go... The characters seem more tangible and real then you have ever seen them before, so you laugh when they laugh, cry when they cry, and gasp in unison. Every plot, sub-plot, and every fundamental cliffhanger is resolved in an uncannily skilled way. But this trilogy is not just a story for children... in fact; it's much deeper then what lies in the surface. And even if you see just what's on the surface it's still a great ride, but then you begin to wonder, and that takes you deeper, and deeper until you have a secure understanding on what's really being said in these books. Impressive, awe-inspiring, wondrous, and at many times the most heart-wrenching book I've ever experienced, none of there words can fully characterize, specify, or describe The Amber Spyglass in its purest, and most moving form. Phillip Pullman has created something more entertaining, engaging, fulfilling, and absorbing then anything like it to date... but come to think of it, there is nothing quite like it, and there never will be anything quite like it. These three books are literally one of a kind, and nothing will be quite the same in one's eyes once they have been experienced.

86 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Different Christianity, November 14, 2000

By A Customer

The Amber Spyglass, at its heart, seems to say that Christianity is a powerful mistake. Throughout the book, the Church is portrayed as evil, and even 'God' himself is shown to be a deceiving character, not the creator. However, the books are not rationalistic and materialistic in their outlook; they create a whole different theology cobbled together out of human spritual traditions.

In fact, the book can be shown to be unconsciously Christian, and a beautiful reaffirmation of the greatest Christian values which we sometimes tend to forget. In our haste to 'follow the Bible' we sometimes forget who Christ was- a saviour to set Mankind free. Although Pullman has stated that he wanted to revel in the physical world, and intended this book as an alternative to CS Lewis' Narnia, there is an unconscious Christian thread running through the book. First off, has anyone wondered why, with 'christianity', there is no Christ? And that God is so weak?

In reality the God shown in the book is not God at all, but a sort of Satan figure, an antichrist. He calls himself God, but as the angels tell us, he is not the creator. In reality, who is the creator, we learn? It is Dust. And in fact, there is a strong case for showing that Dust is God in this book (although this may seem absurd, bear with me for a while. While we think of God as singular, we think of Dust as plural. Just think of Dust as the essence of God).

In the book, Dust pervades the world, and is the source of the greatest joys. Out of it were all things made. So, let us assume Dust is a sort of non-personal God. In the world, it is the source of spirituality. The Church is a institiution of fanatics, a distortion of Christianity. It is the false church set up by an antichrist.

Now comes Christ. Who is Christ in the book? The answer is, Lyra. Her adventures have a very Christ-like feel to them: she frees the people to search for truth (Christ: 'the truth shall set you free'); she saves the world(s) from sin and fanaticism; she reaffirms the existence of love and the holiness of Dust; and she frees the dead to return to God in the world (to mingle with the Dust).

As for the nature of this 'god', Dust. Too often we think of God as a human, only more powerful, wise, and kindly. Why does God have to be of this type? Can't God be a spirituality, a consciousness, a great and holy essence, that fills the world and clusters around those beings that are conscious? The history of our world, as Serafina Pekkala puts it, is "one long struggle between those who want you to obey and submit, and those who want you to stand tall and think". Only, the Church that we have viewed as Christianity had become corrupted by lesser men only a few hundred years after Christ. Those who are truly spiritual and call themselves Christian will find that they need not be tied down to the Bible always, and that consciousness is the greatest gift of all. Holiness is in thought, not in repeating words mindlessly. And this book is truly great. It reveals to us these values, and it awes us. Truly a book for the ages.