 The Golden Compass
The Subtle Knife
Synopsis
Read an Excerpt
Reader’s Guide
Teacher’s Guide
Cast of Characters
Glossary
The Liber Angelorum
Listen 
The Amber Spyglass
Lyra’s Oxford
The Science of
Philip Pullman’s
His Dark Materials
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The Subtle Knife: Reader’s Guide
Questions • Suggested Reading
About this Guide
The questions, discussion topics, and author information that follow are intended to enhance your group's reading of The Subtle Knife. The Subtle Knife is Book Two of Philip Pullman's trilogy "His Dark Materials". In Book One, The Golden Compass, young Lyra Belacqua journeys through "a universe like ours but different in many ways." The most striking difference between Lyra's world and ours is the existence of daemons. These spirit-creatures, physical manifestations of the human soul, can change shape until their human companions reach adolescence. Then each daemon settles into the animal form that best reflects the inner nature of its human counterpart.
In The Golden Compass, Lyra discovers that her mother, Mrs. Coulter, is conducting experiments in which children are severed from their daemons, turning them into emotionless, almost inhuman beings. Mrs. Coulter and her colleagues are doing this to learn more about a substance called "Dust, " which seems to accumulate on humans when they reach maturity. While many fear Dust, both Mrs. Coulter and Lyra's father, Lord Asriel, see it as the source of great power. The Golden Compass concludes with Lord Asriel harnessing the power of Dust to create an opening in the atmosphere of his world, forging a bridge to another universe. This he fearlessly crosses, leaving Mrs. Coulter behind. Lyra perceives that Dust is good and vows to discover its secrets with the help of her "golden compass", or alethiometer, a truth-seeking device. And so Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, follow Lord Asriel into the other world.
The Subtle Knife begins in our own world, where Will Parry, driven by curiosity about his mysterious, missing father and concern for his vulnerable, disturbed mother, accidentally kills an intruder. While fleeing, he finds a "window" into a sunlit otherworld. What could be a better refuge than a hidden universe? But this universe is a strange, empty place: a city that seems to have been abandoned in such haste that food is left rotting on plates at a sidewalk cafe. The inhabitants of the city, Cittágazze, have fled from the invading Specters, ghostlike creatures that devour the souls of adults. But Specters are harmless and invisible to children, and soon Will meets another fugitive child in Cittágazze: Lyra. Although he does not know it, their lives are soon to become forever intertwined when Lyra's alethiometer gives her one simple command: Help Will find his father.
The richly imagined world of Book One seems almost quiet and simple when compared to the turmoil of Book Two. Here "Dust" is called "dark matter" and has been joined by a myriad of other complex phenomena, including the Specters and bene elim (angels). One protagonist has been replaced by two, Lyra and Will. Most significant of all, Lyra's truth-giving compass seems to pale in comparison to the power of Will's new acquisition, the subtle knife, the Ćsahćttr, the knife that will cut ANYTHING. What can it mean to be the bearer of such an instrument?
Questions for Discussion of The Subtle Knife
- What
is wrong with Will's mother? Are her concerns real, imagined, or both?
Why and how does Will protect her?
- What
does it mean when Lyra assumes Will's daemon is "inside"? Do the people
in Will's world, our world, have daemons at all?
- Why does
Will's being a murderer enable Lyra to trust him? What characters do
Serafina Pekkala and Lee Scoresby decide to trust, and is their trust
warranted? In what other ways does trust play an important role in this
novel?
- How has
Will learned to make himself unnoticed by others? Relate this to the
witches' ability to make themselves invisible.
- How do
the Shadows that communicate with Lyra through the computer relate to
dark matter and/or Dust? If Lyra can understand the Shadows as she understands
the alethiometer, then is the computer also acting as a truth-giving
device? What is the real origin of the Shadows' messages?
- On page
188, Giacomo Paradisi tells Will the rules for bearing the subtle knife.
Why do you think Will must "never open without closing"? What did Paradisi
mean by "a base purpose"? Compare these formal guidelines to the instinctive
rules Lyra obeys when using the alethiometer.
- Why is
it significant that the possessors of the alethiometer and the subtle
knife are children? What is the difference between innocence and experience?
What has happened to Mrs. Coulter's solders who have undergone intercision?
- Lord
Asriel is mentioned several times throughout the story, yet we never
directly see him. He is planning a war that he cannot win without an
object that he does not know exists. What does Lord Asriel symbolize
in The Subtle Knife?
- What
did the "Cave" mean when it told Dr. Malone that she must be "the serpent"?
Where do you think she is at the end of the story? Where is Lyra?
- In what
way can a knife that divides pathways between worlds and can sever bone,
rock, and steel be called "subtle"?
Discussion Topics If You Have Read The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife
- In Book
One, Lyra is clearly a leader. In Book Two, she seems to have become
a follower, a servant to Will's cause. Who is more powerful, Will or
Lyra? Whose cause is more important? Is it the same cause?
- Is the
"psychic death" caused by severing the same as that caused by the Specters?
Compare Tony Makarios and the servants at Bolvangar (Book One) to Tullio's
actions after Will takes the subtle knife and the final thoughts of
Lena Feldt (Book Two). Relate these to the "natural" deaths suffered
by Lee Scoresby and John Parry.
- Armored
bears, witches, severed children and adults, cliff-ghasts, Spectres,
and angels are beings with spiritual qualities different from humans.
Why does the authorintroduce so many creatures with alternative soul-states?
- By the
end of The Subtle Knife, we have learned that both Will's father,
John Parry/Stanislaus Grumman, and Lyra's father, Lord Asriel, are powerful
men who have traveled between worlds. Yet one is called a shaman while
the other is preparing to be a general. What is the relationship between
these two men? Compare it to the relationship between Will and Lyra.
- The
Golden Compass takes place in a "closed" world where Lyra finds
guidance through her newly-found alethiometer. In The Subtle Knife,
boundaries between worlds have been broken, Lyra loses her alethiometer,
and Will becomes the reluctant bearer of the knife. Explore the many
parallels and opposites established between The Golden Compass and
The Subtle Knife. How is the dualistic imagery of Lyra's and Will's
worlds counterpointed by Cittaágazze?
- Citing
a passage from John Miltons Paradise Lost, Philip Pullman has
named his trilogy "His Dark Materials." How might this citation, and
the novels' emerging themes, relate to the following quote:
"The prince of darkness is a gentleman." - William Shakespeare (King
Lear)
Suggestions for Further Reading
The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander
The Foundation
Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
The Wonderful
World of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Fahrenheit
451 by Ray Bradbury
The Sword
of Shannara by Terry Brooks
Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
2001:
A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
A Brief
History of Time by Stephen Hawking
A Swiftly
Tilting Planet and A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle
The Chronicles
of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Song
of the Lioness and The Immortals by Tamora Pierce
The Dark
Is Rising series by Susan Cooper
Paradise
Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
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