{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2601",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2601,
    "subject": "_His Dark Materials_ (Skirting spoiler territory)",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2001-04-25T09:53:39+00:00",
    "last": "2001-04-25T18:22:06+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0338@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David Lebling",
        "address": "dlebling at ucentric.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-25T09:53:39+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) _His Dark Materials_ (Skirting spoiler territory)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I thoroughly enjoyed the first book, enjoyed the second, and finished the\nthird. That seems to match Mr. Ansley's and Mr. Bishop's experience. (My\nevaluation of C. S. Lewis's space trilogy is similar.)\n\nThe segments with the bears and the witches in the first book were truly\nexcellent. The bear civilization was well-realized and very bearish. The\nwitches reminded me of the witches in the Kalevala, which is a nice change\nfrom the usual witches one meets in fantasy. The concept of the daemons was\nwell-done and well-elaborated, with some unexpected but well-thought-out\ntwists in the later books (e.g., why do _we_ not have daemons?).\n\nUnfortunately, starting even in the first book, but getting worse in the\nsecond and still worse in the third, Pullman lets his fantasy get out of\ncontrol. What many authors of fantasy forget is that if anything is\npossible, nothing is interesting. Eventually so many rabbits are pulled out\nof so many hats that the dramatic tension in the story just vanishes, and\nall you are doing is following the plot to see how it works out. (The SF\nequivalent, I suppose, is the \"inventing a space-drive using the contents of\nyour junk drawer\" story, or any Star Trek episode).\n\nI will say that the resolution of the problem of the \"subtle knife\" itself\nwas appropriate and how it ties into the ultimate fate of the protagonists\nwas excellent (not going to spoiler here, those who have read it know what I\nmean).\n\nUnfortunately much that came before, especially in the third book, was more\nor less gratuitous. I wouldn't want to go much more deeply into the details\nfor fear of igniting all the spoiler alerts, but the part of the story that\nparallelled Milton was resolved so easily, considering the build-up and the\nstakes, that I just didn't buy it. I will say that thinking about it\ncarefully, Mrs. Coulter's behavior makes more sense, but not as much sense\nas it should, and the sense it makes doesn't make me like her any more than\nwhen I first met her.\n\nAs an aside, I bought _The Golden Compass_ when it first came out in\npaperback, but was unable to get past the first few pages, which I found\namazingly slow moving and uninteresting. Then it appeared on a reading list\nfor my daughter, who is 12, so I gave it to her to read. She asked me\nquestions about it, but I hadn't actually read it yet, so I borrowed it back\nand read it, finding that after those first few pages it picked up really\nquickly and was in its own way a page-turner. Then I read the other two\nvolumes in rapid succession. She's working on _The Subtle Knife_ now, and\nhas found both books relatively hard going. My still-younger daughter, 10,\nis reading _The Golden Compass_ now. Mr. Pullman autographed our copies.\n\n    Dave Lebling\n    aka vizcacha"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0340@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-25T18:22:06+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) _His Dark Materials_ (Skirting spoiler territory)",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0338@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "on 4/25/01 8:53 AM, David Lebling at dlebling at ucentric.com wrote:\nWhat many authors of fantasy forget is that if anything is\npossible, nothing is interesting. Eventually so many rabbits are pulled out\nof so many hats that the dramatic tension in the story just vanishes, and\nall you are doing is following the plot to see how it works out. (The SF\nequivalent, I suppose, is the \"inventing a space-drive using the contents of\nyour junk drawer\" story, or any Star Trek episode)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Or the protagonist suddenly discovering he can travel in spirit to other\nplanets? <g>\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}