THE SUBTLE KNIFE

:''For the weapon mentioned in this book, see Æsahættr''
'''The Subtle Knife''' is the second novel in the ''His Dark Materials'' series, written by British novelist Philip Pullman, and published in 1997.
Pullman alludes heavily to the study of dark matter and particle physics to further establish his metaphysical saga.

Contents

Plot introduction

Plot summary

See also

Film

Further reading

External links

Plot introduction

In the first new world she enters, Lyra meets a twelve-year-old boy named Will Parry, who comes from Oxford in the reader's own universe and is fleeing from the authorities. He has accidentally killed a man to defend his ailing mother, who suffers from a severe case of obsessive compulsive disorder.
They travel through the ominously empty and silent world of Cittàgazze to find answers to their many questions; all the while, the feeling grows in them that there is something special about this world.

Plot summary

Lyra and Will encounter a group of children and learn that the city is called Cittàgazze, and that it is haunted by thousands of vampire-like beings called spectres. Children (pre-adolescent) cannot see the Spectres; adults can, making them vulnerable and therefore afraid to live in any city occupied by these predators.
Lyra and Will, searching for information, return to the Oxford of Will's world. Lyra visits a museum, where she learns that humans began to attract an increased quantity of the mysterious substance called Dust approximately thirty-five thousand years before her own birth. Lyra, guided by her alethiometer, seeks help from a physicist called Mary Malone, who studies dark matter via a computer that measures the level of the so-called "Shadow particles" around certain objects. Astonishingly, "Shadows" are attracted to objects that are made by human beings more than to completely inanimate objects, and appear to be sentient in their own right. The alethiometer informs Lyra that the alethiometer itself, Mary's computer, and the I-Ching are all elaborate methods of communicating with Dust/Shadow.
Will visits a library, where he learns that his father, John Parry, went on an expedition into the Arctic, but never returned. Will examines a folder which contains his father's letters home. From it he learns that John had found, on this expedition, a "window" leading into another world, and had written the coordinates of the "window" in one of his letters.
In Lyra's world, aeronaut Lee Scoresby learns that the explorer Stanislaus Grumman had become a shaman among the Svalbard tribes, and steals the ring of the Church from an agent. The witch Ruta Skadi joins a band of angels who are flying to Lord Asriel's fortress. Asriel is calling all beings from all worlds to join an army under his command, which will destroy the Judeo-Christia-Islamic God. Asriel, the rebel angels, and others believe that this God, called "The Authority", is a corrupt, oppressive force. Serafina Pekkala and her clan of witches go though another window in the sky to Cittàgazze, to find and protect Lyra.
The alethiometer tells Lyra that she must help Will find his father. In Oxford, ''en route'' to visit Mary Malone, she is trapped by some police officers. Lyra accidentally gives away that she knows Will, whom these officers seek. She escapes, with Mary's help, and is offered a ride by the man from the museum who introduces himself as Sir Charles Latrom. He abets her escape, but steals her alethiometer as he hands her rucksack to her.
Later, Will and Lyra go to Sir Charles Latrom's house, intending to take the alethiometer back. It is revealed that Sir Charles is Lord Boreal, a nobleman from Lyra's world, who has also found a passage between worlds and has been using it for some time.
Charles/Boreal tells them that they can have the alethiometer back if they bring him a knife of great power from Cittagazze. They succeed; in the process of seizing the knife from a local youth, Will is marked as its next destined "Bearer".
This "Subtle" knife has two sides; one which can cut through any known matter in the universe, and one which can cut into different worlds. The latter function of the knife, as well as the intuitive operation of the alethiometer that Lyra is capable of, requires the user to enter into a state of negative capability, a condition of willful open-mindedness that the poet John Keats describes in a letter that Pullman mentions in the novel. All of the windows that Will and Lyra have discovered, which were carelessly left open, had been made in this way by users of the knife that forget to close the holes. The knife's former bearer teaches Will how to open and close windows. Will and Lyra realise that they can use the knife to steal back the alethiometer, by cutting a window directly into Boreal's study. Will sneaks in, but is unable to seize the alethiometer. He hides behind Lord Boreal's sofa when Mrs. Coulter walks in, clearly aiming to seduce and control Boreal. Will then opens a hole into his world via Cittàgazze, taking the alethiometer before escaping.
Lee Scoresby finds Stanislaus Grumman, who is known by the name "Jopari" by the tribe of Tartars he joined. Stanislaus reveals that "Jopari" is no more than a mispronunciation of his true name, John Parry. He desperately wishes to find the bearer of the subtle knife, so that he can return to his own world. Lee joins Parry on his quest, guided by Parry's shamanic powers.
Mary Malone writes a computer program that can communicate verbally with Shadow-particles. The Shadows/Dust say that they are rebel angels who tempted Adam and Eve, accelerating evolution and birthing human awareness of affairs beyond immediate need. The Shadows tell Mary to go through the window into Cittàgazze in order to "play the serpent." She complies.
Will and Lyra are rescued by Serafina Pekkala's witches. Although the witches attempt to heal Will's left hand that has been marked by the subtle knife, it continues to bleed unquenchably. Ruta Skadi returns, reporting that Asriel's fortress and army are incomprehensibly vast, and that only something or someone called "Æsahættr" can defeat the Authority. A group of angels arrive to see Lyra, who is destined to change the fate of the multiverse.
Lee Scoresby and John Parry arrive in Cittàgazze, travelling toward the same mountaintop that Will, Lyra and the witches approach. They are chased by four zeppelins carrying soldiers of the Church. Although three of the aircraft are destroyed by John Parry, the shaman is too weak to stop the last one which still contains a large number of men. Scoresby has John Parry go on ahead while he stays behind to fend off the attackers; he dies bravely, in an Alamo-like fashion. Mrs. Coulter poisons Boreal when he has given her information about the subtle knife, and tortures another witch into telling her that Lyra is destined to become a second Eve. Mrs Coulter, fearing a second "Fall" from grace, decides that Lyra must be destroyed.
Will ventures up the mountain and encounters an old, sick man there. Will fights with him; the fight ends when the man realizes that Will is the knife-bearer. He heals Will's wounds with a bloodmoss-based ointment. The man tells Will that he must take the knife to Lord Asriel, as it is the only thing that can destroy the Authority. He lights a lamp, and the two men see each other's faces, at which they realize that they are father and son. Less than a second later, John Parry is killed by a witch, Juta Kamainen, who resents him for refusing to couple with her, having taken his refusal as a question of her worth to himself. Will then watches the witch commit suicide. He descends the mountain and sees that Lyra has been kidnapped, and all that remains is Lyra's backpack, containing the alethiometer. A pair of angels approach who tell Will to go with them to Lord Asriel, but Will is only bringing the knife on behalf of his dead father; and he won't go with them, until he finds Lyra.

See also

★ 1997 in literature

★ His Dark Materials

Film

The Subtle Knife film will go into production if the first film, is a success at the box office. It will be released December 7, 2007.

Further reading

★ His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on Phillip Pullman's Trilogy, , Millicent, Lenz, Wayne State University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8143-3207-2

★ The Elements of His Dark Materials, , Laurie, Frost, The Fell Press, 2006,

External links

★ His Dark Materials | BridgeToTheStars.Net

★ HisDarkMaterials.org

★ Graphical timeline (unofficial)

★ ISBN 0-440-41833-X (American paperback edition)