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The Amber Spyglass |
| The Amber Spyglass | |
 First edition cover |
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| Author | Philip Pullman |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Philip Pullman & David Scutt |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | His Dark Materials |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Scholastic Point |
| Publication date | 2000 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 518 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-439-99358-X |
| Preceded by | The Subtle Knife |
| Followed by | Lyra's Oxford |
The Amber Spyglass is the third and final novel in the His Dark Materials series, written by English author Philip Pullman, and published in 2000.
The Amber Spyglass won the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year award, a British literature award, making it the first children's novel to receive the honor1. It was named Children's Book of the Year at the 2001 British Book Awards, and was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, again the first time this had happened to a children's book2.
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Marisa Coulter kidnaps her daughter, Lyra, relocating her to a remote cave to hide her from the Magisterium, who are determined to kill Lyra before she yields to original sin. Marisa forces Lyra to drink drugged tea. While passed out, Lyra dreams that she is in a wasteland (later realized as the land of the dead) talking to her deceased friend Roger, whom she promises to help.
In Cittàgazze, two angels, Balthamos and Baruch, tell Will, the bearer of the Subtle Knife, that they are taking him to Lord Asriel. Will refuses to go until Lyra is rescued, to which the two assent. Will and the angels are attacked by a soldier of the archangel Metatron, whereupon Will uses the knife to cut a window into another world to escape.
Back in the cave, Marisa washes Lyra's arms, neck and shoulders before forcing her to drink more drugged tea. When Lyra resists, Marisa forces the drugged drink down her throat.
Lord Asriel sends a small army to Lyra's cave to counteract the zeppelins from the Consistorial Court. He also sends two Gallivespian spies, the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salmakia, to protect Lyra. Gallivespians resemble humans, but are approximately four inches tall.
Mary Malone, who has stepped through a window from her own world (assumed to be the readers' world) into Cittàgazze, eventually enters another window into a stranger world. There she meets elephantine creatures who call themselves mulefa and use large seedpods attached to their feet as wheels. These creatures have a complex culture, intricate language, and an infectious laugh; as a result, Mary gradually consider them as equals. Eventually, Mary is absorbed into mulefa community, where she learns that the trees from which the seedpods are gathered have gradually been going extinct for about 300 years. Mary uses the tree sap lacquer to construct a telescope (the 'amber spyglass' of the title) that allows her to see the elementary particles known as Dust. The dust adheres to all life-forms that have attained a level of intelligence associated with building civilizations. She sees that the Dust is flying away in large streams rather than falling on and nourishing the trees on which the mulefa mutually depend.
Will meets Iorek Byrnison, the bear king of the armoured Panserbjørne, who are migrating south to avoid the Arctic melt caused by the effects of Lord Asriel's bridge (created at the end of the first book). After challenging the bear to single combat to stop a raid on a nearby village, Will demonstrates the Knife on Iorek's armor; Iorek, seeing his helmet reduced to slivers in moments, begs defeat. Iorek agrees to help rescue Lyra. Here, global warming is associated with similar disasters taking place throughout many worlds as a result of the upheavals regarding Dust.
Three forces—Will, Iorek, and Balthamos; Lord Asriel's army; and the Church's army—converge on Mrs. Coulter's cave, where Will is able to wake Lyra. He is cutting a window into another world when Mrs. Coulter turns and looks directly at him. For a moment, Will is reminded of his own mother; as a result, his concentration falters, and the knife shatters, having been unable to sever his affection. Because the window he has cut is open, Will, Lyra, and the Gallivespian spies manage to escape to another world.
Lord Asriel's forces capture Mrs. Coulter, but she escapes and flies off to warn the Consistorial Court. The Consistorial Court of Discipline arrests Mrs. Coulter; therefore, she allies herself with Asriel.
Although reluctant, Iorek Byrnison repairs the subtle knife. Will, Lyra, Tialys, and Salmakia later enter the world of the dead, leaving their dæmons behind. Although Will, Salmakia, and Tialys do not have corporal dæmons like Lyra, they possess something similar. Their entry into the world of the dead reflects Greek mythology when an aged boatman (not named in the novel, but presumably representing Charon) ferries souls across a river to a dark, joyless realm where the many worlds' dead are tormented by harpies. Lyra finds Roger among ghosts. Will and the Gallivespians decide to free the ghosts, who Will thinks are in a prison camp; they travel to the highest land point where Will cuts a door into another world. The ghosts step through and dissolve into nature.
Lord Asriel and Marisa talk, revealing that Asriel believes 'sin' is simply enjoying life, which would be quelled by the Church's desire for purity. Asriel has formed an army from all the worlds to conquer the Authority, who is Christianity's God and represents, in Asriel's mind, all the oppression that the Church has caused.
The final battle begins. John Parry and Lee Scoresby, rather than dissolve with the other ghosts, remain intact when they leave the world of the dead and join Lord Asriel's army to fight the Spectres, wraith-like creatures that devour adult souls in various worlds.
Mrs. Coulter enters the Clouded Mountain, citadel of the Authority, where she meets Regent Metatron. She offers him Asriel's life, hoping that he will destroy himself taking it. When Asriel arrives, Mrs. Coulter confesses her scheme to him, whereupon he attacks Metatron. All three fall into an 'Abyss' and cease to exist. Here, Mrs. Coulter's trick resembles that used by Lyra to defeat the renegade bear Iofur Raknison. The Authority himself dies of his own frailty when Will and Lyra free him from the crystal prison wherein Metatron trapped him, able to do so because an attack by cliff-ghasts kills or drives away the prison's protectors.
Lyra and Will, having left the land of the dead, enter the mulefa realm, where they encounter Mary and the witch, Serafina Pekkala, who comes from Lyra's world. Here, too, they reunite with their dæmons, who have have assumed the forms of a marten and a cat. One day, while picnicking in the wood near their camp, they share their first kiss and admit their love. To their dismay, Serafina Pekkala reveals that all the openings between worlds, with the sole exception of the one leading from the world of the dead to that of the mulefa, must be closed because each opening allows Dust to escape into oblivion, whereas the creation of new openings generate the Spectres. Lyra and Will must return to their own home worlds, unable to survive more than ten years in any world but their own. The two protagonists, therefore, make an emotional farewell, promising to come each year to a place in each world that corresponds to one in the other and be together in this way.
Lyra returns to Jordan College. Because she can no longer read the alethiometer, having lost the subconscious innocence that enabled her to read it by instinct, she decides to study alethiometry at a special school. Hereinafter, she and dæmon Pantalaimon will follow John Parry's suggestion to build the idealised Republic of Heaven at home. Will, too, returns to his world, accompanied by Mary Malone, who remains his friend. During the return, Mary learns how to see her own daemon, who takes the form of a black Alpine chough.
Pullman's publishers have primarily marketed the series to young adults, but Pullman also intended to speak to adults.3 North American printings of The Amber Spyglass have censored passages describing Lyra's incipient sexuality.45
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