{"id":486,"date":"2011-08-15T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T13:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=486"},"modified":"2011-08-14T22:27:46","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T05:27:46","slug":"mark-reads-the-amber-spyglass-chapter-21-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2011\/08\/mark-reads-the-amber-spyglass-chapter-21-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Amber Spyglass’: Chapter 21"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twenty-first chapter of The Amber Spyglass<\/em>, Philip Pullman takes every fluffy kitty, every eager puppy, every adorable baby animal, all of your hopes and dreams, and stomps them to death<\/strong>. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read The Amber Spyglass<\/em>.<\/p>\n

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE HARPIES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before we begin, we’ve got a new banner up this week from the talented folks over at BridgeToTheStars.net. You can see the full image it is cropped from right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ve sat on writing this review for four full days now, and every time I returned to this document, I’d read the introduction, and I’d have no inspiration. To explain that, I do my reviews, one at a time, in advance on the weekends, as I’m discovering that I have very little time during the week to do much writing. So I read chapter twenty-one on Tuesday, and then couldn’t find the inspiration of what to write until Saturday. No words would come to me, and I was stuck swimming through vague concepts and ideas. I have read things in the past that either shocked me into silence (of which Pullman has done before) or were so unbelievably gutting that I didn’t know what I would write aside from imitating sobs. (Pullman, Rowling, and Zusak have all done that to me.)<\/p>\n

I suppose, then, that I should provide some context to why the events in the first half of “The Harpies” have affected me so strongly, and why this may have been one of the more difficult things I have ever read.<\/p>\n

Just a warning, frank talk about death\/loss ahead<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I’ve spoken openly in many past reviews about how the loss of my father hit me particularly hard, especially since he was the first person who was really close to me that passed away. A friend from college that I met my freshman year died due to complications from AIDS when I was twenty, but I was never super<\/em> close to him, and while I grieved the loss of my friend, it was easy for me to detach from any pain that I might feel. The same thing happened when a friend’s older brother (who I somewhat knew) passed away while I was a senior. I think that, frankly, my lack of experience with death is what made my dad’s passing in 2006 particularly hard. I had no knowledge of how to cope, or how I should react, or what I should do with all the awful feelings swirling around inside of me.<\/p>\n

That’s not some unique idea, though. I think anyone who experiences death of a loved one goes through a pretty similar thing. Obviously, we all cope differently, and our lives dictate how we might react to any given moment, not even considering death. But in those first moments when you receive the news, and when it’s finally confirmed, there was a loneliness that ripped through me, worse than what I’d ever felt before, and it was coated in terror. It was a loss of safety. If my father could die, then so could my mom, or my brother, or even me.<\/p>\n

But it all felt like a cruel joke to me, something I still can’t really comprehend or conceptualize. It is an absurd notion that, to this day, I don’t think I’ve ever dealt with. My father is still alive somewhere. He’s just not home. It’s an awful behavior, lacking in any rationality, but I still do it. I avoid visiting my mother because my father is in every fiber of that house. Only he’s just not there and I don’t like having to face it.<\/p>\n

It is like you are standing on that shore, and your father is in the boat, and he didn’t drift away. It’s more like he is staring at you, and you don’t get to reach out and say goodbye. The boat disappears. And sometimes, if you squint hard, you can swear that you can see the outline of the boat in the fog that swirls in the distance, so you simply wait, knowing it is inevitable that the boat will have to come closer, come into focus, come back to the shore, and you can see your father again, and he was simply on an extended vacation.<\/p>\n

A very close friend of mine got sick last year. They slipped into a coma, and spent weeks being unresponsive. Imagine someone you talk to every single day can longer speak to you. No, it’s worse than that. Imagine that they cannot communicate<\/em>. They woke up after weeks of silence and stillness. Those weeks of winks, squints, and squeezes were as close to a spiritual experience as I’ll ever get. But imagine those don’t happen, and imagine that silence becomes this overarching, smothering thing. This time, you’re in the boat, and you’re watching the static figure of your friend on the shore. You’re yelling, crying, screaming at them to get their attention, but they merely stand there. They don’t wave back, they don’t call after you. In fact, they’re facing the opposite direction, and you don’t even get to see if they have a reaction. Instead, their image starts fading away from the world, and no matter how much you fight the current, the shore continues to slip away.<\/p>\n

The absurd finality of death is what scares me. I like<\/em> being alive, even if I don’t necessarily like what happens inside of it all of the time. The very idea that this can stop and there is no more is not something I care to face most days, but life has a funny way of forcing you to. But all of the things you love or all of the faces and voices you have in your life will one day disappear. And whatever you believe about our after life, I imagine it’s still something that isn’t particularly comforting. Unless you do believe the people you love are in your afterlife, then perhaps this experience is not as jarring to you. But I don’t think I have any sort of afterlife in my post-death existence. I think that death is just blackness and nothingness and that’s the end of the road. Which IS REALLY AWFUL<\/em>, I know, but I’ve never got the sense that there’s anything more.<\/p>\n

And I think that’s why I was so excited to see the world of the dead here in The Amber Spyglass<\/em>. These characters were being given the chance to see what happens after you die, and I believed they were doing so without having to face the repercussions of what death means. It was a peak at something hopeful, that there’s a chance that death is not the end of everything. So, despite that all of these characters felt a foreboding sense of dread as they journeyed to the boat that would take them to the world of the dead, I<\/em> did not feel that. I was excited<\/em>, strangely, and I knew that my feelings on death motivated this sense of anticipation.<\/p>\n

So I almost experienced a giddy joy<\/em> as they came upon the old man who rowed the boat back and forth between the shore and the land of the dead.<\/p>\n

Almost.<\/p>\n

There was no need to speak. Will got in first, and then Lyra came forward to step down, too.<\/p>\n
But the boatman held up his hand.<\/p>\n
“Not him,” he said in a harsh whisper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I initially believed he meant Will and that Will would have to stay behind because of the knife. Well, I thought, at least the journey would focus more on Lyra!<\/p>\n
“Not who?”<\/p>\n
“Not him.”<\/p>\n
He extended a yellow-gray finger, pointing directly at Pantalaimon, whose red-brown stoat form immediately became ermine white.<\/p>\n
“But he is<\/em> me!” Lyra said.<\/p>\n
“If you come, he must stay.”<\/p>\n
“But we can’t! We’d die!”<\/p>\n
“Isn’t that what you want?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It was like a sack of bricks was shot out of cannon into my chest. It was the first of countless moment where I simply refused to read another sentence. It’s not that I was mad<\/em> at Pullman, or that this was poorly written, or that this was bad plotting. But in just a few sentences, Pullman was showing me that there is no act without consequences, and there would be no death without loss. Lyra had made a decision, and she would have to face the ramifications, as painful as they are.<\/p>\n
Like Lyra, I fought every<\/em> second of this idea, and when I finally got the courage to sit down and keep reading, I found myself begging<\/em> Pullman to find a way for Lyra to bring Pantalaimon with her. I kept looking for a loophole, some commandment the Gallivespians could give that would change this, something Will could do with the knife that would change this reality.<\/p>\n
“It’s her misfortune that she can see and talk to the part she must leave. You will not know until you are on the water, and then it will be too late. But you all have to leave that part of yourselves here. There is no passage to the land of the dead for such as him.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That’s when I knew this was inevitable, that there was no other answer. This was what she had<\/em> to do in order to get to the world of the dead. And this is where I lost it:<\/p>\n
And she looked back again at the foul and dismal shore, so bleak and blasted with disease and poison, and thought of her dear Pan waiting there alone, her heart’s companion, watching her disappear into the mist, and she fell into a storm of weeping. Her passionate sobs didn’t echo, because the mist muffled them, but all along the shore in innumerable ponds and shallows, in wretched broken tree stumps, the damaged creatures that lurked there heard her full-hearted cry and drew themselves a little closer to the ground, afraid of such passion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It just felt too<\/em> close to me. It singed a little too<\/em> close to my heart. When I came home the day my brother called me and told me our father had died, this is the sensation I had when I looked upon the empty recliner he called home. This is what I felt as I stared at the seemingly lifeless body of my friend as they slept in that still state of inactivity. It was revolting to me that people have to go through this, and it was repulsive that life amounted to these moments of sorrow and loss.<\/p>\n
Will could hardly watch. Lyra was doing the cruelest thing she had ever done, hating herself, hating the deed, suffering for Pan and with Pan and because of Pan; trying to put him down on the cold path, disengaging his cat claws from her clothes and weeping, weeping. Will closed his ears: the sound was too unhappy to bear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I don’t even intend to laugh at this, but in hindsight, I sort of have to: I kind of wish I could have filmed myself reading this chapter IF ONLY so all of you could hear the inhuman noises that came from my mouth. I mean, it was some disgusting<\/em> sobbing, and not like that gentle crying with tears welling in your eyes and a lump in your throat. I mean like that shake-your-whole-body-the-world-is-ending type sob.<\/p>\n
I think it took me close to an hour to read this chapter, and Pan’s ever-changing form that personified “misery” was like the last nail in the coffin of my happiness. I know I’ve commented about it before, but d\u00c3\u00a6mons (sadly) are not real, and I don’t have a true sense what this separation is like, and yet Pullman has built this world so fully, I felt like I was losing my father all over again, or that I was staring at the body of my friend in a hospital bed once more, and I could not escape the sense of hopeless despair that creeped into my body. Pan and Lyra are always<\/em> supposed to be together, and I did not want to read a book where they would be apart. I simply couldn’t do it. So I’d read a paragraph and go stare out the window, or pet my cats, or pick up my guitar and senselessly keep myself busy. The truth of the matter was that I was just flat out in denial. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t<\/em> happen. There would be no justice in the world if there wasn’t a way around this.<\/p>\n
…but as the boatman let go of the iron ring and swung his oars out to pull the boat away, the little dog d\u00c3\u00a6mon trotted helplessly out to the very end, his claws clicking softly on the soft planks, and stood watching, just watching, as the boat drew away and the jetty faded and vanished in the mist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yep. Done. Gone. Spent. Wasted. Completely gutted and heartbroken. It happened. There was no other way. It happened. I WILL NEED TO BE HELD FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT YEAR<\/strong>. I can only think of one<\/em> book that has ever affected me this profoundly and violently, but it still comes nowhere close to what I felt when I read this and what I still<\/em> feel thinking about it.<\/p>\n
And thus the prophecy that the Master of Jordan College had made to the Librarian, that Lyra would make a great betrayal and it would hurt her terribly, was fulfilled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I HAD COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN ABOUT THIS<\/strong>. oh my heart i will never heal. oh my god this is so upsetting to me<\/em>.<\/p>\n
AND AFTER ALL OF THIS, after one of the most heart-wrenching, haunting, and disturbing things I have ever read, PHILIP PULLMAN IS NOT EVEN DONE RIPPING OUR EMOTIONS APART<\/strong>. THIS SECTION ALONE WAS ENOUGH TO FILL A CHAPTER<\/em>, but no! He is not done yet! As the entire group feels the anguish of the loss of their souls (except the dragonflies, because apparently they don’t have souls?????), Pullman gives us Will’s loss, and it is so fucking gutting and awful and how is this real and christ:<\/p>\n
And it was worse than that. It was as if he’d said, “No, don’t kill me, I’m frightened; kill my mother instead; she doesn’t matter, I don’t love her,” and as if she’d heard him say it, and pretended she hadn’t so as to spare his feelings, and offered herself in his place anyway because of her love for him. He felt as bad as that. There was nothing worse to feel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
No, there is not. I literally cannot think of anything worse. what has this book done to me<\/em>.<\/p>\n
The though came to Will and Lyra at the same moment, and they exchanged a tear-filled glance. And for the second time in their lives, but not the last, each of them saw their own expression on the other’s face.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In the midst of all of this, it was<\/em> lovely to read this, because I felt this swell of…I suppose it was pride<\/em>. I was proud of these two being friends, and I was proud of the way they unequivocally had each other’s back, and I was proud that I could read a series with such complicated, nuanced, and empowering characters. Even in this moment of extreme loss, they look to one another and experience the slightest sensation of intimacy, and I think that is a powerful testament to their loyal friendship.<\/p>\n
But it is a very tiny moment of joy and comfort, and the picture that Pullman paints is bleak, grim, and final. I genuinely do not know how they will make it out of the land of the dead, and the oarsmen is certainly not helping that. The fatalistic monologue that he gives the passengers is one that seems devoid of everything God or god or any gods or religion tells us of the world beyond the living, and it sounds worse than any hellfire sermon given behind a pulpit. I’m curious as to what sort of justification this place has in the grand scheme of the Authority, especially since the Bible is so insistent on life after death. In this world, though, it seems no one<\/em> goes to heaven because the kingdom is not open to anyone. There is no joy or love or hope after death. All humans pass through this place of dim fog and sorrow, and there is no comfort. Who you were, who you know, how much you owned…absolutely none of it mattered.<\/p>\n
How the hell are they going to get out of this?<\/p>\n
Well, actually, the first thing our travelers have to deal with is getting in<\/em> to the land of the dead. After reaching the shore of the island where all dead folks are left, they walk through the mist until they come upon some sort of wall, behind which they can hear “mournful shrieks and wails that hung in the air like the drifting filaments of a jellyfish.” There’s a door in the wall, which…there’s a door to the land of the dead, y’all. This is ridiculous<\/em>.<\/p>\n
But it is not at all as ridiculous as the introduction of the harpies, the creatures from Greek mythology that are half women, half vultures. Harpies guard the door to the world of the dead, and somehow, Pullman makes them even more terrifying than I recall them being. I’m intrigued by the contrast to the two sets of guardians to this place, though, since the oarsman is a quite, gentle man, and the guards are vicious harpies, and I wonder why this is the order that a dead person faces. I mean, you’ve lost your soul along the way. Are you really going to get smarmy with a harpy at the end of this?<\/p>\n
The harpy that they encounter first seems incredulous at the idea that these people are not dead, which is kind of fascinating to me. I mean….they lost their souls. Aren’t they technically dead? Maybe so, but in spirit, they are very much alive. Who else would decide to attack HARPIES? God, I love the ferocity with which all of these characters, the Gallivespians included, fight to get beyond the harpies, even after what they all just went through. WHO ELSE WOULD DO THAT? Yes, they don’t succeed because they are clearly outnumbered, but it’s the effort that I’m impressed with.<\/p>\n
And leave it up to Lyra to attempt to find a way to talk<\/em> her way into the world of the dead. SERIOUSLY. She offers to tell a story to the No-Name Harpy in exchange for being let inside. Lyra, the great storyteller, believes she can use her ability to get past this creature, and I dearly love her for it. It’s sort of like she’s been training for this very moment.<\/p>\n
Well…okay, perhaps not. Even if she was, I could not have expected what the harpy does just seconds into Lyra’s story: She screams that Lyra is a liar and RIPS OUT A CHUNK OF HER HAIR FROM HER SCALP. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?<\/em> In the chaos that follows, Will grabs Lyra and pulls her towards the door. I was disturbed by Pullman pointing out how the cries of, “Liar! Liar!” sounded so much like Lyra’s name. Will, that wonderful badass that he is, CUTS OUT THE LOCK ON THE DOOR WITH THE SUBTLE KNIFE, and the Gallivespians follow behind him into the world of the dead.<\/p>\n
oh my god THIS BOOK<\/em>, Y’ALL.<\/p>\n
———-<\/p>\n
If you are just aching<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0to discuss the many spoilery things that this chapter and others I’ll read this week, BridgeToTheStars is hosting a conversation about THE WORLD OF THE DEAD<\/strong><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and you should probably go hang out there with other His Dark Materials<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0fans. You still have a chance to enter the contest<\/a> BTTS is hosting in conjunction with me to give away a signed copy of The Amber Spyglass<\/em>!<\/p>\n
Even cooler, they got a chance to speak with Helen Crawford-White<\/a>, who worked on my favorite cover designs for the trilogy. I would highly advise that you read her interview and check out the photos!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the twenty-first chapter of The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman takes every fluffy kitty, every eager puppy, every adorable baby animal, all of your hopes and dreams, and stomps them to death. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,79],"tags":[23,81,62,80],"class_list":["post-486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-his-dark-materials","category-the-amber-spyglass","tag-mark-reads","tag-mark-reads-the-amber-spyglass","tag-philip-pullman","tag-the-amber-spyglass-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486","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=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}