A work of art!! (The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman)

Member Name: randompunter

Product:	The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
Date:	07/03/02 (134 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great storyline, well writen

Disadvantages: too short

This is the second of Pullmans’ ‘Dark material’ trilogy and I must say the weaker out of the three. Don’t get me wrong it was good but the others were better. I though this one real backbone in the story.

Don’t think that this book is just for kids and has a simple storyline, often its children’s books who discuses the large issues, many adult contain boring every day storylines with petty issues and boring content.
I think the fact that Pullman wrote this book with children in his mind is what makes it good. There’s no long description that drags on and makes your mind wander, it’s all sharp and effective and by no means childish. The story line is superb you want to read on. You can read this book for hours on end and not get board (although your eyes may hurt after a while).

The characters are complex and realistic. The idea of daemons is fantastic. The daemon is there soul but in animal form outside their body. The daemon shows much more about the character and what they are feeling. Daemons cannot hide their emotions as well as humans so you learn a lot about a character from their daemon. When you are young your daemon can take any form but when you are older it take a fixed form and the form it takes shows what kind of person your are that’s why when you are young it changes because when you are young you are still trying to find out what kind of person you are.
This book has a very interesting contrast between good and evil. In most children’s books the contrast is always strong but this book is different. The good people are far from perfect they’re about as bad and as good as the next person. The bad people always seem to turn and do something outstandingly good. This style of writing keeps you on your toes and is very affective.

I’m going to give you a brief outline of the story so you know what to expect (I’ll try not to give too much away)
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Lyra has just gone through the opening between two worlds. She is in pursuit of her father and wanting to discover more about the mysterious fundamental particles called ‘Dust’ . She finds her self in a city that seems to be abandoned. The only creatures there are Spectres. Ghost like creatures who eat the soul of adults leaving them dead, but it is crueller than death they are left zombie like unable to love or feel just wander the world. After a while of staying in this world she meets a boy Will. Will got to this world through small slit in his world. His world is very similar to ours if not the same. In his world he was being pursued by strange men who wanted his father’s diary. By accident he killed one of them and now is in fear of being captured by the police.
Lyra is the chosen one. She is essentially Eve and it is believed that she will give in to temptation for a second time. It is believed that when this is done everything will be lost and God will fall.
Will is just as important. He has the knife that can cut through anything, destroy anything. He uses the knife to cut through into other worlds.
Lyra has many friends and many enemies. Her greatest enemy is Mrs Coulter. Mrs Coulter works for the church in finding out about Dust. But to do this she must experiment on children and sever them from their daemon. In fact the entire church is against her. Some of her friends include: the witches and the armoured bears.
The book ends with a wonderful cliff hanger (which I won’t give away). The ending almost forces you to read his next book.

This is great book with a strong storyline and deserves every award it gets. I know I said it was the weaker of the three but that’s not really saying much as their all so amazing.

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