{"id":507,"date":"2011-08-23T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T13:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=507"},"modified":"2011-08-19T15:26:40","modified_gmt":"2011-08-19T22:26:40","slug":"mark-reads-the-amber-spyglass-chapter-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2011\/08\/mark-reads-the-amber-spyglass-chapter-27\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Amber Spyglass’: Chapter 27"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twenty-seventh chapter of The Amber Spyglass<\/em>, Dr. Mary Malone learns personally of the horrific future of Dust, and Father Gomez MEANS BUSINESS. He is THE MOST SERIOUS PRIEST EVER. Also what the fuck<\/em>. If you’re at all intrigued, then it’s time for Mark to continue reading The Amber Spyglass<\/em>.<\/p>\n

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: THE PLATFORM<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a short chapter, but it’s not lacking in any sort of crucial information. I think I am getting a much better picture of why<\/em> Mary’s story is so important to the trilogy, but I haven’t yet been able to figure out how she’ll eventually meet up with Lyra and Will. She has<\/em> to in order to tempt her. Of course, then that<\/em> leads me to another set of questions concerning exactly how that is supposed to work, but I don’t feel like I have enough information to even begin to ask the right questions. (Or do I? DUN DUN DUN<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

For now, though, Pullman concerns himself with Mary’s part of the story, where the mulefa<\/em> help construct a platform so that Mary can observe Dust in a more comprehensive way. Like her experience high up in the tree earlier in the book, Mary feels a unique sensation of bliss when she settles into her new platform. Here, though, she must concern herself with less happy thoughts. Why is the sraf<\/em> drifting in one direction? What happened three hundred years prior to this to cause the change in the world of the mulefa<\/em>? Pullman gives a bit more context to this number by telling us that at the same time, the subtle knife, the alethiometer, and the Royal Society were all created. So all things inherently drenched in Dust, and all created by human hands in the pursuit of knowledge and experience. But those are good things! Why would they be causing something so negative in this<\/em> world?<\/p>\n

As Mary ponders these very thoughts, a bizarre thing happens to her, and it’s one of the few passages in the entire trilogy that I found myself reading multiple times just to understand it. At first, I believed it was a mere vision, but the end of it suggests otherwise. Why else would she have an out-of-body experience except if it was some sort of hallucination or daydream? She describes it as if there is a “flood” of sraf<\/em>, pulling her towards the sky and away from the tree, her body slipping out of view. Is her soul<\/em> being pulled out of her body? I wondered.<\/p>\n

It seems so, as thoughts of life, experiences of the physical self, are what bring Mary back. Things that are so uniquely human to her, things that are signs of being alive, they are what help her fight the smooth, determined current.<\/p>\n

And then a strange thing happened. Little by little (as she reinforced those sense-memories, adding others, tasting an iced margarita in California, sitting under the lemon trees outside a restaurant in Lisbon, scraping the frost off the windshield of her car), she felt the Dust wind easing. The pressure was lessening.<\/p>\n
But only on her<\/em>: all around, above and below, the great flood was streaming as fast as ever. Somehow there was a little patch of stillness around her, where the particles were resisting the flow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So not only are the particles conscious (else they could not resist<\/em> anything), but something about Mary’s life is what stops this flow because<\/em> they are conscious, aware of Mary’s fear and anxiety. What the fuck is going on?<\/em> Mary returns to her body, and here’s where we get about as much confirmation that I need that this was not<\/em> a dream at all:<\/p>\n
Her fingers found the spyglass, and she held it to her eye, supporting one trembling hand with the other. There was no doubt about it: that slow sky-wide drift had become a flood.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Jesus, WHAT IS GOING ON. HOW MANY TIMES DO I NEED TO REPEAT THIS. I am at a loss. Is something pulling them there or–more interesting–are the particles rushing off on their own?<\/em> Does it have to do with Lyra and Will opening up the world of the dead?<\/p>\n
The shadow particles knew what was happening and were sorrowful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
“Sorrowful”? Ok, that doesn’t sound like they’re willing participants. Mary knows this, and she heads towards the ground, knowing she has little time to figure out what is happening.<\/p>\n
But she also has no idea how close Father Gomez is to finding her, and Pullman switches over to his perspective as he comes upon a group of tualapi<\/em>. Why am I not surprised that the mulefa<\/em> have nothing to do with this evil waste, yet that species’ enemy is the first he comes upon? GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION. Or something?<\/p>\n
As he watches them, one gains the courage to leave the water and come after him, “hissing with malice,” and I suddenly wished for nothing more than it to rip his head off and be done with it. I don’t care if that’s predictable or boring. I would love it. And all books should cater to my desires, right<\/em>?<\/p>\n
Oh god. OH GOD<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Father Gomez was about a hundred yards from the edge of the water, on a low grassy promontory, and he had plenty of time to put down his rucksack, take out the rifle, load, aim, and fire.<\/p>\n
The bird’s head exploded in a mist of red and white, and the creature blundered on clumsily for several steps before sinking onto its breast. it didn’t die for a minute or more; the legs kicked, the wings rose and fell, and the great bird beat itself around and around in a bloody circle, kicking up the rough grass, until a long, bubbling expiration from its lungs ended with a coughing spray of red, and it fell still.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?! WHAT THE FUCK I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HE HAD A GODDAMN RIFLE WHAT THE FUCK!!!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY! WHAT THE FUCK WHY ARE YOU SO AWFUL FATHER GOMEZ.<\/em><\/p>\n
If they knew what death was, thought Father Gomez, and if they could see the connection between death and himself, then there was the basis of a fruitful understanding between them. Once they had truly learned to fear him, they would do exactly as he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh, christ on a goddamn cracker. (I’ve always wanted to type that.) SHIT JUST GOT SO REAL<\/em>. Oh my god, y’all. WHAT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the twenty-seventh chapter of The Amber Spyglass, Dr. Mary Malone learns personally of the horrific future of Dust, and Father Gomez MEANS BUSINESS. He is THE MOST SERIOUS PRIEST EVER. Also what the fuck. If you’re at all intrigued, … 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-507","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\/507","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=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}