Rereading: THE SUBTLE KNIFE by Philip Pullman

Cover art by Eric Rohmann

When I read this the first time I was disappointed, rereading it I was not. Perhaps I was so enamored of the world in the first book that to leave it behind for much of this one was disappointing, and perhaps I was also unhappy with the overall storyline that develops here, which I now find more appealing.

A new character is the focus of much of the book, Will Parry. He lives in our own world in a house with his mother, who is increasingly developing symptoms of mental illness. Will’s father disappeared soon after he was born. John Parry was an explorer attached to an Arctic expedition that seems to have entirely vanished, but some men are trying to find out more about him, and pestering Will’s mother, then searching their house. He knows they want the letters she has that his father wrote to her. Will finds someone to care for his mother, but knows he has to run away. Returning to the house, he’s trapped by the men as he retrieves the letters from the attic. In escaping, one of the men falls and dies. Now Will is really on the run, and he finds a strange refuge: a hidden doorway in the air that lets him into another world. That world seems empty of adults, only children are sometimes in the empty city he finds.

Meanwhile, Lyra is also in this strange city, and they meet. Lyra has walked into it from her world, as seen at the end of “The Golden Compass,” and she’s looking for her father, Lord Asriel, but doesn’t know how to find him, or even which world he’s now in. Will and Lyra become friends and try to help each other, but soon run into all kinds of trouble. Lyra’s most prized possession, the alethiometer that tells her what to do, is stolen. She and Will confront the thief, and he offers them a deal. If they will find and retrieve another powerful object, the subtle knife, from the world they’ve hidden in, he will trade the alethiometer for it. Deeper and deeper into trouble they go. And back in Lyra’s world, her friends the witches and the balloonist Lee Scoresby are also in trouble but trying to help her, if they can get to her in time.

As this book reveals, a war in Heaven is brewing, with Lord Asriel in charge of the forces that want to take on and defeat God. That storyline seemed an overreach to me the first time through, but now makes more sense and adds depth. There are some hard moments here, but the book is well written and compelling. Recommended.

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Published on July 17, 2025 05:06
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