wednesday books are humanist

[landofnowhere]

His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (the entire trilogy in ebook omnibus). Reread, but I don't think I'd read the last two books of the trilogy since Amber Spyglass came out when I was 14. (Should go look up what I wrote about it at the time for perspective, but haven't yet.) Philip Pullman spins a entertaining adventure yarn, but I'm less compelled by the theology / meditation on loss of innocence. I feel like a theme in classic children's literature is about how being a kid is great -- you get to go to Narnia, read the alethiometer, are generally more open to magic... and there's not enough about how being a teenager/young adult is also great, and doesn't mean you're done growing up already. Would like less Will, more armored bears. Had forgotten how great Mary Malone is, though!

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Hank Green. Present-day SF that's also a meditation on social media and celebrity. Protagonist is not a great person, and we get to watch her screw up a lot, but the supporting cast is made up of lovely people (apart from the Designated Villain). Reading was a cathartic and meaningful experience. Ends on a cliffhanger, and I have already started the sequel, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor. Worried the protagonists may be a bit too beautifully foolish her.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

"Less Will, more armored bears" seems like the perfect epitaph for His Dark Materials, tbh. I loved the first book so much and never got over the tragic disappointment when the later books spent so much time on someone not-Lyra.

[sovay]

"Less Will, more armored bears" seems like the perfect epitaph for His Dark Materials, tbh.

+1.

[sovay]

I feel like a theme in classic children's literature is about how being a kid is great -- you get to go to Narnia, read the alethiometer, are generally more open to magic... and there's not enough about how being a teenager/young adult is also great, and doesn't mean you're done growing up already.

About the only instance in which I don't hate that trope is Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain and it took me until very recently to figure out why. I still prefer genarti's fix-it for the end of The Dark Is Rising.

Regarding Pullman, I recognize that I am not inclined to give him a lot of extra credit, but especially if he wants to write human sexual awakening as a moment of great wonder and mystery rather than sin and downfall, it kind of undercuts his own point if he still locks his characters out of the garden for it: no more alethiometer, no more travel between the worlds, no more fluidity (which was built in from the start with the idea that daemons settle their forms with adolescence, but still). I might have found it more subversive if his teenage heroes had banged and still not had to give all of their magic up.