Christy's comments (member since Aug 07, 2007)

Christy's comments from the Books I Loathed group.

I'm truly baffled by the response to these books. I just finished them and I loved them. Maybe someone could be more specific about why they didn't like the books. For fairness' sake, here are some reasons I *did* like the books.

I thought the characters were intriguing, believable, and, perhaps most important for this kind of book, able to change and grow through the course of the series, both as individuals and in relation to one another. Like the other Christy who commented above, Lyra and Will's relationship really resonated with me.

The daemon element was at first difficult to get into, I admit. Not a challenging concept, but a challenge to start to *feel* as important. I don't think that really happened for me until the very end of the first book, maybe even the beginning of the second book. But once that shift occurred, I had absolutely no trouble with it. In fact, I think it's one of the best parts of the series. The idea that we could each have such a daemon (although we can't see ours), something that *is* part of us and that also reveals something about who we really are, is just plain cool. When I finished the series, I found myself wishing I had a daemon myself.

I loved the settings--all of them clearly visualized and worth exploring. From Lyra's cold, northern world of the first book to the beautiful and very different world Mary Malone encounters in the third book, these were all places I wanted to see for myself, places I would love to explore. So Pullman's writing created this desire for me and allowed me to fulfill it to a certain degree, too.

I really thought the commentary on angels and God and the relationship between religion and our lives was interesting. It's not a super-deep theological or philosophical commentary on these things, sure, but to expect a y/a novel to be such would be unfair and unrealistic. As it is, the approach to life that Pullman's attitude toward religion provides in the third book is one that I appreciate and could support.

Okay. Sorry. This comment got a little long as I got thinking about how much I liked the books. I really would like to know more about what others didn't like about the series, though. What specifically didn't work for you?

Catch-22 is a weird book for me. I haven't been able to finish it, despite enjoying it when I pick it up. It's a funny and clever book and in small doses, I really, really like it. I just can't sustain my interest in it for long enough to finish it. At least not yet.

I'm kind of surprised these haven't come up already: The Scarlet Letter (1995--with Demi Moore, Robert Duvall, and Gary Oldman) and Beloved (the 1998 Oprah version).

To be fair, I haven't seen either of them, but I continually hear about how awful they are. I'm curious what the rest of you think. Have you seen them? Are they really that bad?

I read As I Lay Dying as an undergraduate and, after forcing myself to get through the first couple of chapters, *loved* it.

Absalom, Absalom, on the other hand, I've never been able to finish. I've read most of it, but never all the way through. I was assigned it for two grad classes. I really liked the discussions we had about it and I enjoyed lots of pieces of it, but as a whole it was just too exhausting.

And I tried The Sound and the Fury on my own. I made it about 15 pages in and put it away forever.

I do love Flannery O'Connor, though. At least, I love what I've read. :-)