Salaperäinen veitsi (1997)

Date approximate ( )

This is my second time through this book and it just proves that sometimes your like or dislike of a book is based on your own personal circumstances rather than the nature of the book, because this time I raised my rating from 2 to 4 starts. I loved meeting Will again, and seeing the relationship between him and Lyra grow. I loved the idea of the windows into other worlds, and the struggle of young people trying to find their way in the absence of parents, teachers and mentors. I suspect it may have been that absence that had me disliking the book last time, but somehow it landed right this time. ( )

This was not at all what I was expecting from a sequel to The Golden Compass. The end of the first book in the trilogy pulls the rug out from under the reader, revealing that Lyra’s father is just as dangerous as her mother, if only with different methods and conflicting alliances.

The second book resets the playing field when we meet Will Parry, who comes from a world much like our own and who lives in modern times, not the early part of the Twentieth Century like you might imagine from Lyra’s version of Oxford.

The Subtle Knife is deeper and weirder, and much more disturbing than the first book. Lyra and Will discover a third world that serves as a way station between their respective worlds, but it has fallen into disrepair and been overrun with invisible specters who can suck the life out of an adult in seconds.

Will has to make some hard choices, and they encounter new and more terrifying dangers. We also start to get glimpses of Lord Asriel’s grand plan, and it is unclear what to root for other than Lyra and Will living to fight another day.

The book ends on a cliffhanger that must have been maddening back when it was first published. On to the final book in the trilogy! ( )

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In the first of these three novels we meet Lyra, a young girl living in a University, lacking discipline she roams the college itself, and the streets of Oxford. Accompanied everywhere by her daemon, Pantalaimon(Pan). For in this world everybody has a demon, an extension of themselves. Daemons take the form of animals, children’s can flutter and change from shape to shape, but as they grow they settle on a form. A form which reflects the personality of the individual.

Full review: http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2006/03/12/his-dark-materials/