Word
If you take
The word, words –
The plural noun
Of word,
And
Add the letter L
You letterally create
Your own
Worlds
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I finally finished flipping through Pullman’s 935-page epic last weekend. Whew.
I need a break after that one. I enjoyed it, kind of thought it dragged at the end but if you’ve already wrote 830 pages why not a hundred more? Sarcasm aside, it is a stunning book. To be able to think of all that, organize it, hand write it, and finally type and print the final product;… it would take a long time, and one smart mind. Props to Pullman.
While reading I was jotting down page numbers where I found something interesting or enjoyed. By the time I was halfway through the third book I was practically writing down every page. Pullman is a genius.
Since innocence to experience is a major theme I marked a number of passages where the reader and Lyra can feel her changing.
-487- Pan and Lyra are talking about Will and the alethiometer. Pan says they could use it even if Will didn’t ask and that they could “find out all kinds of things for him.” Lyra is then the one to refuse saying, “don’t be stupid, it would be us we’d be doing it for, ‘cause he’d never ask. You’re just greedy and nosy, Pan.” And Pan responds, “That makes a change. It’s normally you who’s greedy and nosy, and me who has to warn you not to do things.” This is an interesting change that marks a turning point in Lyra where she starts thinking about her actions and their results before she rushes into them. And a little farther down the page Lyra directly states, “I might have done that once, but I’m changing, I think, Pan.”
-523- This is in Chapter 15 in the Subtle Knife where Will meets his father. Will is yearning for family and his father, someone to be proud of him, but he doesn’t want to tell Lyra. But Lyra can sense it. “… she could see it in his eyes, and that was new for her too, to be quite so perceptive. The fact was that where Will was concerned, she was developing a new kind of sense, as if he were simply more in focus than anyone she’d known before.” Us boys need to watch out. It seems that as women become experienced they can perceive, read, and understand our emotions, thoughts, and mind.
-693- This change happen after Iorek leaves Lyra once he’s mended the subtle knife. Lyra wails, “I love him so much, Will! And he looked old! … Is it all coming onto us now, Will? We can’t rely on anyone else now, can we … It’s just us. But we en’t old enough yet. We’re only young … It’s al coming onto us, what’s got to be done.” Here Lyra really understands her change, but she doesn’t want to, she’s afraid of what she has to do.
-771- At the top of this page Lyra whispers to Will her idea of setting all the ghost free, out of the land of the dead. After she whispers to him, he gives her a smile she’ll never forget. “He turned and gave her a true smile, so warm and happy she felt something stumble and falter inside her; at least it felt like that, …It might have been a new way for her heart to beat.” L.O.V.E.
-833- Lyra and the Specters. “She thought she could see the specters from time to time, in an oily glistening of the air; and it was Lyra who felt the first shiver of danger.” A little farther down the page, “And it was about then that Lyra felt the first distant lurch of nausea, pain, and fear that was the unmistakable touch of the Specters.” This is a major indicator that Lyra is nearly done changing, growing out of her innocence towards experience; experience that , yes includes love and sex, but knowledge and perception too, that life doesn’t last forever, there are people out to get you, and that it’s her own responsibility to watch after herself.
I’m sure there are more references to Lyra’s ongoing change to experience but those are the ones I jotted down. I think Pullman did an awesome job exposing Lyra’s growth slowly, she realizations that she isn’t the same little girl who once ran wild around Jordan College. One quick question, if kids are so good at pretending to be grownups, animals, or whatever shouldn’t adults be able to pretend to be kids again? Oh wait, they do … in literature.
