{"id":407,"date":"2011-06-29T07:00:59","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T14:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=407"},"modified":"2011-06-28T19:23:50","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T02:23:50","slug":"mark-reads-the-subtle-knife-chapter-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2011\/06\/mark-reads-the-subtle-knife-chapter-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Subtle Knife’: Chapter 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the third chapter of The Subtle Knife<\/em>, Lyra comes to learn just how difficult her journey to find Lord Asriel and Dust is going to be. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Subtle Knife<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Well, this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be easy.<\/p>\n

CHAPTER THREE: A CHILDREN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S WORLD<\/strong><\/p>\n

I actually enjoy<\/em> that Pullman is setting this up to be an awfully complicated situation because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.look, Lyra has just walked into a parallel universe with absolutely no plan at all, aside from going to a university she hopes<\/em> exists. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it. That is her only plan. We know that Lyra is an adventurous, tenacious young girl, but the problems exemplified at the end of chapter one are blown wide open now. Lyra has no clue what she is doing, and if it weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t for Will Parry, things would be a whole lot worse than they already are.<\/p>\n

At the very least, though, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trying. She makes her own omelette the next morning, burns it, and feels nothing but pride for having done this herself. (I like that Will declines a Lyra Omelette, choosing to have cereal instead.) It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very<\/em> Lyra, when you think about it: she insists on finding a way to do things precisely her way.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that Lyra and Will are so upfront with each other, too, because they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t beat around the bush. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annoying to me when people are placed in bizarre situations in science fiction \/ fantasy and they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask questions. These two, instead, quiz each other out of curiosity. Where did they come from? Where are they now? What did they experience when they moved into this universe? We know that Lyra spent days<\/em> in some sort of fog. DAYS of fog. That alone sort of creeps me out. Where the hell are they where there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fog for days and no other people?<\/p>\n

On top of having to worry about that, Pullman starts seeding Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new major problem: She only knows the way of her own world. I like that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a huge basis on the meaning of words, and as someone who obsesses over such things in various ways, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually rather exciting to see how language differs between the two of them. What is experimental theology for Lyra, who has lived in a world where the Church runs everything, is physics for Will. Anbaromagnetism is electricity. Electrum is amber. Words differ, sure, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the least that these two have to worry about. Because despite that Lyra has been in this world for three or four days and has not seen a living soul anywhere, the two of them suddenly hear a child talking. And two basket-carrying kids, both with red hair and nowhere near enough alarm for what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on, come walking right up to Will and Lyra. To add to my utter confusion they ask, in procession, if Will and Lyra are from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ci\u00e2\u20ac\u2122gazze\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Elia.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I thought maybe they were speaking with thick accents and these weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t meant to be the names of other cities, but then, when Will asks where the grownups are, one of the kids replies:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the Specters come to your city?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Great. GREAT. This is not going to be anywhere near<\/em> easy. We learn that this city is called Citt\u00c3\u00a1gazze and that this parallel world has almost nothing at all in common with either Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s or Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. As Will and Lyra learn more about this world from the two kids (Angelica and Paolo), it all just sounds like nonsense. There was<\/em> a giant fog storm and when it cleared, the city was full of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Specters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the grownups can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go near them? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T GET THIS. So, only children can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see Specters? Is this like d\u00c3\u00a6mons, I thought, but in reverse? Certainly that could be an explanation, but then that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make sense either. Angelica says that when the Specters arrive, they get to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153run about in the city,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as if the grownups are too occupied to care otherwise.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, when a Specter catch a grownup, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad to see. They eat the life out of them there and then, all right. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be grown up, for sure. At first they know it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re afraid; they cry and cry. They try and look away and pretend it ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 happenin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, but it is. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too late. And no one ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 gonna go near them, they on they own. Then they get pale and they stop moving. They still alive, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like they been eaten from the inside. You look in they eyes, you see the back of they heads. Ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 nothing there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The girl turned to her brother and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Me and Paolo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to look for ice creams,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You want to come and find some?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Only if that ice cream comes with A FUCKING BILLION HUGS<\/strong>. oh my god OH MY GOD PLEASE TELL ME THAT THIS IS NOT REAL. That is one of the most terrifying things I have ever read. Oh christ, you all, Steven Moffat ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t got SHIT on this. brb nightmares for the rest of my life<\/em>.<\/p>\n
So, as I understand it, Will and Lyra are in Citt\u00c3\u00a1gazze, and the children they just met live in this universe where grownups are always in fear of the Specters. Well, none of this is at all what I thought was going to happen in this book. Which makes me wonder\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.is Pullman actually going to take us into universes beyond these? I mean, I would adore that, but it might be hard to pull off and keep track of.<\/p>\n
For the time being, though, Lyra and Will are concerned with dealing with the jarring experience of traveling between worlds. Will hears Pantalaimon speak for the first time, which has to be just one weird thing piled on top of another. Still, I have to admire how much Will is just willing to accept all of this without any sort of disbelief. I mean…true, he just traveled into a parallel universe<\/em>. I suppose for him, virtually anything is possible at this point. But Will is a practical person, and he knows he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a task in front of him that needs far more attention than worrying about a talking d\u00c3\u00a6mon:<\/p>\n
He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to make it so that Lyra doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand out in his universe.<\/p>\n
As I said in the opening, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m coming to adore this set-up so much specifically because<\/em> it is so complicated, and it must be said that Pullman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention to detail is what makes this all so mesmerizing. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore the fact that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the little things that matter in this surreal situation. Lyra has come form a world where nearly every culture has variations from what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s known, and it would have been disingenuous had Pullman ignored that small things, from showers to washing one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hair to dressing, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t show us how Will and Lyra were so different. For Will, though, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaving the safest place in the world in order to help Lyra, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worried that her obvious anachronistic behavior and dress is going to give them up. Of course, he does threaten to kill Lyra<\/em> if she messes it up, and she believes her. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a nice thing to say.<\/p>\n
And so they set off to camouflage Lyra in the best way possible. Lyra, unsurprisingly, is a bit resistant to some of the things that Will suggests, such as the aforementioned hair washing, or having to wear trousers. The also get to see more of Citt\u00c3\u00a1gazze in the process, and Will is unsettled by how ancient it all seems, from the crumbling cityscapes to the odd patchwork construction of the buildings around them. They make it to the spot where Will climbed through into this universe, locating the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153window\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the fabric of the world. Will instructs Lyra on how to cross over and a new<\/em> problem presents itself: Lyra is not used to CARS<\/em>. And I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe I never once picked up on that during my read of The Golden Compass<\/em>, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recall a single mention of a car once in that book. In my head, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d just assumed this world was set in the past, maybe the mid 1900s or something; but at the time, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know this book was about parallel universes. Why would I have looked for such details?<\/p>\n
Out of everything Lyra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been presented with, this is certainly the worst of them all. Most of us have lived our lives with cars being a part of them, even if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re someone like me, who has never owned a car in his life. Lyra, on the other hand, is spooked by the sound of cars themselves, as she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s able to hear them through the window. Will does his best to prepare her for the other side, instructing her how to get to the center of the city, assuming that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make it through just fine. She pops through the window and Will peers through the window to see if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made it through all right.<\/p>\n
AND LYRA GETS HIT BY A CAR. WHAT THE HOLY HELL<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
In hindsight, it is eerily sensical for this to happen: Lyra has no concept of what cars really are and it stands to reason that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have no way to judge when it would be safe to cross the street and avoid them. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s details like these that make it so easy to slip right into the story and immerse myself in this imagined tale, but at the same time, CHRIST LYRA CANNOT CATCH A BREAK. She has now traveled into a second<\/em> universe, after already having to deal with some mysterious fog and days without good food or human contact, and as soon as she steps into a new world, she is hit by a fucking car<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Poor Lyra. Poor, poor Lyra.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, aside from being bruised and scratched, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not seriously hurt. But, again, this chapter is about compounding difficulty. Lyra was hit by a car, and there are witnesses. They can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just walk away, and if Lyra is questioned by anyone<\/em> about the accident, how can they be sure that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to conceal herself and not give away the fact that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not from this world? (I had a scary thought during this section, actually. Panatalaiman had take the form of a wasp, and I wondered what would happen if a police officer arrived and tried to swat Pantalaimon away and touched him and how revolting that would be to Lyra. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen because THERE IS ALREADY ENOUGH GOING ON.)<\/p>\n
Will decides to craft a story about Lyra being his sister and living \u00e2\u20ac\u0153around the corner\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so he can get them away from the accident as quickly as possible. I could not help but laugh at Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fake name, Mark Ransom, because it is so clearly a fake, but at least the kid is trying. They both manage to escape from this disaster by giving a convincing false address, and it makes me realize that, in a way, Lyra and Will do have this in common: they share an ability to be remarkably crafty when they need to be. In her own world, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like Will is here, and that adds another fascinating layer to this chapter, since we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen Lyra face this much awkwardness before.<\/p>\n
Even though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fake relationship to act as a disguise, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore the fact that Will seems to take Lyra on as a younger sister. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m getting the feeling that the bulk of this story is going to focus more on Will than on Lyra, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m honestly okay with that. I like that Pullman is exploring this new dynamic so completely. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard being able to deny the sense of nobility that Will operates under as he gets money for Lyra and helps to get her to her ultimate destination. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t insult her or shame her when she starts to be overwhelmed by this world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Oxford, either. He knows he is doing a good thing by coming back from his safe place to help her out.<\/p>\n
But the chapter does end on Lyra and I feel like Pullman is driving home the importance of this final message. The experience of traveling to Oxford University in this universe does not provide the sense of calm or catharsis that this young girl was looking for. Instead, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all full of confusion and terror. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disorienting by seeing streets she knows<\/em> that she has spent days exploring, and then seeing this pseudo copies filling her vision. Her plan has now unraveled, for if this is not the same world as hers, it stands to reason that maybe the people she needs aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t here either.<\/p>\n
This is going to be one hell of a journey.<\/p>\n
As a note, we are doing a liveblog for The Golden Compass<\/em> over on Mark Watches on Saturday<\/a>. Join us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the third chapter of The Subtle Knife, Lyra comes to learn just how difficult her journey to find Lord Asriel and Dust is going to be. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Subtle Knife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,76],"tags":[23,78,62,61],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-his-dark-materials","category-the-subtle-knife","tag-mark-reads","tag-mark-reads-the-subtle-knife","tag-philip-pullman","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}