The Amber Spyglass

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The Amber Spyglass

First edition cover
Author Philip Pullman
Cover artist Philip Pullman & David Scutt
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series His Dark Materials
Genre(s) Fantasy novel
Publisher Scholastic Point
Publication date 2000
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 518 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-439-99358-X
Preceded by The Subtle Knife
Followed by Lyra's Oxford
For the instrument featured in this book, see Objects of His Dark Materials#Amber spyglass.

The Amber Spyglass is the third and final novel in the His Dark Materials series, written by British author Philip Pullman, and published in 2000.

The Amber Spyglass won the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year award, a prestigious British literature award, making it the first children's novel to receive the honor.[1]

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Lyra has been taken by her mother, Marisa Coulter, (more commonly known as Mrs. Coulter) to a remote cave in the Himalayas of their own world, where she is kept in drugged sleep. In this state, Lyra dreams that she is in a wasteland (later realized as the land of the dead) talking to her dead friend Roger, whom she promises to help.

In Cittàgazze, a pair of angels named Balthamos and Baruch tell Will that they have come to take him, the bearer of the Subtle Knife, to Lord Asriel. Will refuses to go until Lyra is rescued, to which the two assent. Will and the angels are attacked by a soldier of the archangel Metatron, the Authority's Regent. Will cuts a window into another world to escape.

Lord Asriel sends out a small army to Lyra's cave, to counteract the zeppelins from the Consistorial Court. He also sends two Gallivespian spies, the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salmakia, to protect Lyra. Gallivespians resemble humans, but are approximately four inches tall.

Mary Malone, who has stepped through a window from her and Will's own world (much like the readers') into Cittàgazze, eventually goes through another window into a stranger world. She finds a group of elephantine creatures who call themselves mulefa and travel by attaching round seedpods to their feet and using them as wheels. These creatures have a complex culture, intricate language and an infectious laugh; as a result, Mary begins to think of them as her equals. Eventually, Mary is absorbed into mulefa community, where she learns that the trees from which the seedpods are gathered are becoming extinct, and have been so for 300 years. Mary, to further understand this problem constructs a telescope out of sap lacquer that allows her to see Dust. It seems to be flying off into the distance in large streams, rather than falling downward and nourishing the trees on which the mulefa mutually depend.

Will meets Iorek Byrnison, the king of the armoured Panserbjørne, whose people are migrating south to avoid the Arctic melt caused by the effects of Lord Asriel's bridge (created at the end of the first book). After challenging the bear to single combat to stop a raid on a nearby village, Will demonstrates the Knife on Iorek's armor, and Iorek, seeing his helmet reduced to slivers in moments, begs defeat. After determining Iorek's identity, Iorek agrees to help rescue Lyra. Here, global warming is associated with similar disasters taking place throughout many worlds as a result of the upheavals regarding Dust.

Three forces—Will, Iorek, and Balthamos; Lord Asriel's army; and the Church's army—converge on Mrs. Coulter's cave. Will is able to wake Lyra. He is cutting a window into another world when Mrs. Coulter turns and looks directly at him. For a moment, Will is reminded of his own mother; as a result, his concentration falters, and the knife shatters. This is because when Will thought of his mother, the knife met a resistance it could not break - love. Due to the window he has cut is open, Will, Lyra, and the Gallivespian spies manage to escape to another world.

Lord Asriel's forces capture Mrs. Coulter, who escapes and flies off to tell the Consistorial Court everything she knows. The Consistorial Court of Discipline arrests Mrs. Coulter; therefore she allies herself with Roke and Asriel. This side of the war wants to preserve Dust, not destroy it, for they see the Church as trying to take all the joy out of life by categorizing it as "sin".

Iorek Byrnison repairs the subtle knife, but with regret. Will, Lyra, Tialys and Salmakia enter the world of the dead, leaving their dæmons (worldly identities) behind. At this point, Will finds out that he does have a dæmon as he also feels a great pain in his heart, and physically, as Lyra does. The manner of their entry reflects Greek mythology in its use of an aged boatman (not named in the novel, but presumably Charon) to ferry the dead across a river. Lyra finds Roger in the crowd of ghosts. Will and the Gallivespians decide that the ghosts must be freed from this world, which Will considers a prison camp; therefore they decide to go to the highest point in the land of the dead, where Will cuts a door into another world. At this, the ghosts step through and dissolve into nature.

Asriel and Marisa talk. Asriel in fact wants to preserve Dust forever, not destroy it. He does not think 'sin' as the Church defines it is bad. Like the angels desire flesh, 'sin' is no more than enjoyment of life. Without such 'sin' there'd be no story to tell the harpies. It is not really 'sin', it is in fact freedom. If the Church destroys Dust, which they think is Original Sin, that freedom will be lost forever, and the Authority's oppression will dominate all worlds.

The final battle begins. John Parry and Lee Scoresby hold themselves together when they leave the world of the dead and join Lord Asriel's army to fight the spectres.

Mrs. Coulter enters the Clouded Mountain, citadel of the Authority, where she meets the Regent Metatron. Mrs. Coulter manipulates Metatron by offering him Lord Asriel's life. This is similar to the means by which Lyra had tricked Iofur Raknison, Iorek's rival for kingship of the bears; in that Lyra had used Iofur's desire to become human to trick him, much as her mother uses Metatron's desire to experience sensual pleasure to confuse him. Mrs. Coulter betrays Metatron to Lord Asriel, on the grounds that Lyra is precious to both of them. All three tumble into an abyss, their ghosts destined to continue to fall for eternity.

Will and Lyra enter the world of the mulefa. They grab their dæmons immediately before doing so; the dæmons run off again.

Lyra and Will's dæmons return after meeting with the witch (also, Lyra's dæmon has taken on the permanent shape of a marten and Will's a cat called Kirjava- named by´Serafina Pekkala) Serafina Pekkala and tell them that all the windows between the worlds must be closed, as Dust is leaking out of them all the time. Furthermore, every time a window is made, a Spectre is created; therefore the knife must be destroyed altogether. The angels will allow one window to remain open: the one leading out of the land of the dead. Because Will and Lyra have fallen in true love with each other, and because they cannot live together (for the reason being permanently out of one's own world causes sickness and death within a little over ten years), this information deeply saddens them. However, they both agree that one day a year, on Midsummer's Day, each of them will sit on a bench that corresponds to one like it in the other's world; thus putting them in the same place.

Lyra returns to Jordan College, where she had lived for many years. Because she can no longer read the alethiometer, having lost the subconscious innocence that enabled her to read it by instinct, she decides to study alethiometry at a special school. Hereinafter, she and dæmon Pantalaimon will follow John Parry's suggestion to build the idealised Republic of Heaven at home. Will, too, returns to his world, accompanied by Mary Malone, and knows that he has a true friend who will understand the whole ordeal.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Gibbons, Fiachra. "Epic children's book takes Whitbread", The Guardian, Guardian Unlimited, January 23, 2002. Retrieved on 2007-04-05. 

[edit] References

  • Lenz, Millicent (2005). His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on Phillip Pullman's Trilogy. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-3207-2. 
  • Frost, Laurie (2006). The Elements of His Dark Materials. The Fell Press. 

[edit] External links

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