The Amber Spyglass

The Amber Spyglass is the third book in His Dark Materials trilogy. Spoiler Alert From having read the first two books I expected the story to culminate in an apocalyptic war between the forces of good and the forces of evil, but that just petered out. There were a few skirmishes as both sides tried to capture or kill our heroine Lyra, but Pullman seems to have forgotten about the drums of war he had beat in The Subtle Knife. The story of Lyra's and Will's adventures is labyrinthine and many new fantastic beings are introduced. The plot of their quest is rather nebulous. Will had initially intended to bring the subtle knife to the service of Lord Asrial, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. The devious and treacherous Mrs Coulter betrays the Church and The Authority in whose service she had spent the first two books. She and Asrial together physically struggle with the archangel Metatron, the Regent of Heaven, and they all plunge to their doom in The Abyss. (Doesn't Metatron sound like the name of a Transformer?) In the Land of the Dead, Lyra and Will meet Lee Scoresby and Will's father (who were both killed near the end of The Subtle Knife) but there is no development of their relationships. Dr. Mary Malone creates the amber spyglass with which she can see the mysterious Dust, or what she as a physicist in her home world was investigating as dark matter. Mary and the amber spyglass seem to have very little bearing on the adventures of Lyra and Will. Lyra and Will, on the brink of adolescence, have fallen deeply in love but they say goodbye forever as each must return to his or her own world as all the windows between the various worlds are sealed. At the end of the story Lyra loses her ability to read the alethiometer (the golden compass) and Will destroys the subtle knife. End Spoiler Alert Presumably Dr. Malone, as a physicist, can use the amber spyglass in her investigation of dark matter, but this really isn't part of the book which is, of course, fantasy and not science fiction.

His Dark Materials has been denounced in the name of the Church. In the first books, the Church is portrayed as a dark force, but it is a fictional church in a fictional world. In The Amber Spyglass, blasphemous or sacrilegious sentiment may be more forthcoming, as the following quotations show:

Balthamos, an angel: "The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty—those were all names he gave himself . He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves— the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself. Matter loves matter. It seeks to know more about itself, and Dust is formed. The first angels condensed out of Dust, and the Authority was the first of all. He told those who came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie. One of those who came later was wiser than he was, and she found out the truth, so he banished her. We serve her still. And the Authority still reigns in the Kingdom, and Metatron is his Regent."

Mrs. Coulter: "And then I learned the witches' prophecy. Lyra will somehow, sometime soon, be tempted, as Eve was— that's what they say. What form this temptation will take, I don't know, but she's growing up, after all. It's not hard to imagine. And now that the Church knows that, too, they'll kill her. If it all depends on her, could they risk letting her live? Would they dare take the chance that she'd refuse this temptation, whatever it will be? No, they're bound to kill her. If they could, they'd go back to the Garden of Eden and kill Eve before she was tempted. Killing is not difficult for them; Calvinn [the pope] himself ordered the deaths of children; they'd kill her with pomp and ceremony and prayers and lamentations and psalms and hymns, but they would kill her. If she falls into their hands, she's dead already."

Ogunwe, a king of Africa: "We're not going to invade the Kingdom but if the Kingdom invades us, they had better be ready for war, because we are prepared. Mrs. Coulter, I am a king, but it's my proudest task to join Lord Asriel in setting up a world where there are no kingdoms at all. No kings, no bishops, no priests. The Kingdom of Heaven has been known by that name since the Authority first set himself above the rest of the angels. And we want no part of it. This world is different. We intend to be free citizens of the Republic of Heaven."

Dr. Mary Malone: "I used to be a nun, you see. I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn't any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all."

Dr. Mary Malone: "There's no one to fret, no one to condemn, no one to bless me for being a good girl, no one to punish me for being wicked. Heaven was empty. I didn't know whether God had died, or whether there never had been a God at all."

Serafina Pekkala, a queen of witches: "...and I met an angel: a female angel. She was very strange; she was old and young together. Her name was Xaphania. She told me many things. She said that all the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. She and 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."

Would these be the kinds of passages that could have lead Christians and supporters of the Catholic Church to denounce His Dark Materials?