Mr. Bliss

This book is a J. R. R. Tolkien work that I before receiving a copy for my birthday* from my eldest brother I had had no idea existed. He wrote it as entertainment for his children when they were young - each page of the book is a scan of his own original handwriting** plus basic but entertaining illustrations by Tolkien himself. The story itself is incredibly simple - Mr. Bliss buys a car and gets into a series of minor inconveniences which strung together pass as a legitimate if somewhat mundane adventure. It's not particularly inventive or clever but I imagine it would work as a bedtime read for children between three and six. That's where I'll leave my recommendation - this book is probably only worth reading if you are of, or are reading to someone of, that age; though that said anyone with an interest in Tolkien will get some degree of tickle out of the sheer quaintness of this little book, the story*** as much as the pictures.

* I turned thirty-two yesterday. Cash and gifts to be sent to my PO box.

** Which is a lot neater than you may expect if you've ever heard Tolkien speak in recordings (man was a mumbler).

*** I wanted to mention this but didn't leave any gaps for an appropriate segue in the main body of this post - Mr. Bliss has a pet girabbit. You know, part giraffe part rabbit. Other than anthropomorphised bears this is the only fantastical element to be found in the book.

the Amber Spyglass

This book is the third (see here for the first and here for the second books) and final instalment of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. I didn't mention in earlier posts but although this is my first time reading these* I did watch the recent BBC adaptation of them (which is very good but not as good as the books, as is so often the case), so I already had a broad grasp of the story, characters, and themes; but I wanted to revisit it from the horse's mouth, as it were.

   So - the story. As with previous instalments I shall only sketch out the first third or so to avoid spoiling it. Lyra has been captured by Mrs Coulter, who is keeping her in a drug-induced sleep while she [Mrs Coulter that is] plots her next move to keep her daughter safe from the clutches of the Church: meanwhile, Lyra is being visited in her dreams by her dead friend from the first book, Roger, who seems to be calling out from the land of the dead. Will is universe-hopping with the subtle knife, looking for Lyra, soon crossing paths & teaming up with Iorek Byrnison, who has resumed his duties as king of the armoured bears after his last mission with Lee Scoresby went awry. Mary Malone found a window in her universe to another world populated by intelligent wheeled creatures called mulefa, who teach her a great many new strange things. And thundering on in the background to all this is a mounting war for dominance of the heavens - the Church on the defensive, and Lord Asriel with all the allies he can muster on the offensive. Needless to say, Will & Lyra soon reunite, and aware of the grand currents of destiny swirling around them, they resolve to find a way to go to the land of the dead - to do something, they know not what, but that will have monumental impact on the battles brewing in the world around them.

   I hugely enjoyed this whole trilogy. Lyra & Will are complex, likeable & relatable as protagonists; the moral frameworks of antagonistic forces & the conflicts they're engaged in are delightfully grey & thought-provoking; Pullman is a straightforward, not at all verbose or lofty, writer of immense skill in conveying feelings from urgency to safety & everything inbetween; and finally I would say that the originality of the fantasy elements in these stories is perhaps the strongest of all the kids' fantasy series I've read for this blog. The alethiometer & the subtle knife are unique conceptual inventions, far from being mere MacGuffins these are well-thought-through objects with comprehensible powers that drive the plot forward in innovative ways. And Dust! I won't actually give you any info on Dust here, in case you want to read the trilogy for yourself, as exploring & resolving the mysteries around it as a phenomenon is central to the backbone of the books, but I will say again that it is a marvellously original & fecund idea in fantastical worldbuilding.

   This whole trilogy I would highly recommend for readers between six & fourteen maybe (don't @ me if you decide this is an inappropriate age bracket, when I was a child I read whatever the heck I wanted & it did no lasting damage) for maximal enjoyment but these are such well-crafted stories that I'm sure adult readers will get a lot out of them too. I did.

* To my shame - I would have loved them as a child. But then, I never read The Chronicles of Narnia as a child either, and would have loved them; and I suspect Pullman being a kind of anti-Lewis the dialectic between the two series in my imagination had I read both would have led me to some interesting theological questions as a youth.

the Subtle Knife

This book is the second instalment of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. As I said in my previous post, as I always do for serieses I will be reserving my fuller thoughts on the whole for the final post & here will simply give a rough, spoiler-free sketch of the story's gist.

   Will Parry, a teenage boy from our world, whose chief concern in life is caring for his mentally-ill mother, accidentally kills a man who has broken into the house. Naturally, he leaves his mum with his piano teacher to keep her safe while he runs away - then, almost immediately, he finds a magical window into another world. This other world, called Cittágazze, is a crumbling coastal city, deserted by everyone but children. While exploring, the first other person Will encounters is a girl slightly younger than him who introduces herself as Lyra Silvertongue (aye, the very same heroine from the first book - she was renamed by Iorek Byrnison), who tells him that great things are afoot. Together they start travelling back and forth between Will's universe & Cittágazze as Lyra searches for her father for clues as to where her path leads & Will in turn seeks his own father, an explorer who went missing on a mission in the far north when Will was a baby. Their hunt soon leads them into contact with a pair of notable adults - the seemingly helpful museum-enthusiast Sir Charles Latrom & the bewildered dark-matter research scientist Dr Mary Malone; mysteries begin to resolve somewhat into focus & conspiracies continue to plod inexorably along, and soon the duo find themselves seeking the eponymous subtle knife, an item of immense cosmic power that people from many worlds would kill to possess. I will discuss it along with the alethiometer (and Dust! I haven't mentioned Dust in either post yet, oops) in the post about the final book in the trilogy, coming soon. Oh, forgot to mention, Lee Scoresby is still hanging about looking for a shaman, and Serafina Pekkala (a witch-queen) is here too.