day 10 - you must tell them stories
Business associations has been banished to hell. Goodbye final number three!
Dearest Tamara asked me to talk about one of my favorite literature series today. She couldn't have picked a more perfect topic, which I think she suspects. Specifically she asked me to talk about Lyra and Marisa/Asriel thoughts.
When asked about favorite books, I sort of go through a process in my head of trying to figure okay well what genre maybe is someone asking me for. But really, I always circle back to His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. It's the truth. This book series will always be number one for me. I remember I did a whole project on The Amber Spyglass in middle school. Made a presentation and did all this literary analysis and even drew an amber spyglass complete with glitter. When I was younger my parents bought me books as rewards, for doing well in school, and more so really because it was a relatively inexpensive thing that they could spare money on to gift me with something. (I think that backfired on them quickly with how fast I read, but I digress).
Anyway, when I started reading the series I fell in love immediately. I don't know really if I can definitively say that child characters aren't done well in fiction. Certainly that's not true at all. We have Harry Potter and Anne of Green Gables and Sailor Moon and Judy Blume and etc etc. Those are just a small taste. But for me, The Golden Compass was a book I read prior to reading Harry Potter. So this was the first narrative I got that had a child (and a girl) that went on this huge grand fantasy adventure. I mean there's talking polar bears and witches and foreign lands and DAEMONS. So I was in love from the start. To this day the way to win me over is to make a daemon au.
I now own three different sets of this series, each with a different cover. I one day dream of owning the huge illustrated one that's like two hundred dollars.
But Lyra was so fantastic to me because she was around my age and she's just fantastic. I had exposure to Christianity as a kid because my grandparents took me to church when I stayed with them in Virginia, so I was familiar enough to grasp what was going on. To me I thought it was amazing that we had a child liar that was so biblically important. She wasn't an adult.
Now that I've gotten older it's become all the more amazing the concept of her and her construction. She's a literal born again Eve. She's a liar so already she's embroiled in sin. Lyra at Jordan College is a nasty little brat who starts riots and lies and tells fantastical stories and sneaks into her "uncle"'s secret meeting. Further, she's set on this "quest" to bring about the end of destiny. Caught between what her parents are doing and then what Mary leads her to do, Lyra doesn't end up really doing it either of their ways. In fact, everyone ends up doing it all FOR HER. It took me on about my third re-read to pick up on that truly and completely. But it's Lyra that learns that lies aren't necessarily bad, and stories are so so so important, but how you can use words to win the day.
It's just so fascinating to me that this story tells of a child Eve who gets to bring about the end of destiny and fated slotted religion and such. Since religion is so twisted and corrupt in this universe. And that the series ends with her alone, but not. She gets to be what she wants and is free in a way.
Which leads me to discussing her parents.
Now Elizabeth and Darcy might get my literary otp tag, but truly THE literary otp for me will always be Marisa and Asriel. I mean how do you possibly get any better than two people who loved each other, didn't give a fuck about each other at the same time as never forgetting and giving up on the possessive hold of each other, ended the corrupt nature of religion, and tore the universes apart in a way before giving their lives up so their daughter could live. IT'S JUST SO MUCH. ALWAYS SO MUCH. WAY TOO MUCH.
It's interested to me that while Marisa undergoes a lot of transformation through the trilogy that Asriel doesn't. He's very set on his course of action, inhabiting almost the I hate destiny, but I'm gonna do my destiny and all that. Whereas Marisa goes through being the married woman, the scorned woman who takes up power in the Church, the mother who finds her child again and wants her as a tool, the mother who wants to now protect her child, the woman who reunites with her lover, and the woman who dies for her daughter. It's just fascinating all the roles and skins Marisa gets to inhabit without ever losing herself.
Dearest Tamara asked me to talk about one of my favorite literature series today. She couldn't have picked a more perfect topic, which I think she suspects. Specifically she asked me to talk about Lyra and Marisa/Asriel thoughts.
When asked about favorite books, I sort of go through a process in my head of trying to figure okay well what genre maybe is someone asking me for. But really, I always circle back to His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. It's the truth. This book series will always be number one for me. I remember I did a whole project on The Amber Spyglass in middle school. Made a presentation and did all this literary analysis and even drew an amber spyglass complete with glitter. When I was younger my parents bought me books as rewards, for doing well in school, and more so really because it was a relatively inexpensive thing that they could spare money on to gift me with something. (I think that backfired on them quickly with how fast I read, but I digress).
Anyway, when I started reading the series I fell in love immediately. I don't know really if I can definitively say that child characters aren't done well in fiction. Certainly that's not true at all. We have Harry Potter and Anne of Green Gables and Sailor Moon and Judy Blume and etc etc. Those are just a small taste. But for me, The Golden Compass was a book I read prior to reading Harry Potter. So this was the first narrative I got that had a child (and a girl) that went on this huge grand fantasy adventure. I mean there's talking polar bears and witches and foreign lands and DAEMONS. So I was in love from the start. To this day the way to win me over is to make a daemon au.
I now own three different sets of this series, each with a different cover. I one day dream of owning the huge illustrated one that's like two hundred dollars.
But Lyra was so fantastic to me because she was around my age and she's just fantastic. I had exposure to Christianity as a kid because my grandparents took me to church when I stayed with them in Virginia, so I was familiar enough to grasp what was going on. To me I thought it was amazing that we had a child liar that was so biblically important. She wasn't an adult.
Now that I've gotten older it's become all the more amazing the concept of her and her construction. She's a literal born again Eve. She's a liar so already she's embroiled in sin. Lyra at Jordan College is a nasty little brat who starts riots and lies and tells fantastical stories and sneaks into her "uncle"'s secret meeting. Further, she's set on this "quest" to bring about the end of destiny. Caught between what her parents are doing and then what Mary leads her to do, Lyra doesn't end up really doing it either of their ways. In fact, everyone ends up doing it all FOR HER. It took me on about my third re-read to pick up on that truly and completely. But it's Lyra that learns that lies aren't necessarily bad, and stories are so so so important, but how you can use words to win the day.
It's just so fascinating to me that this story tells of a child Eve who gets to bring about the end of destiny and fated slotted religion and such. Since religion is so twisted and corrupt in this universe. And that the series ends with her alone, but not. She gets to be what she wants and is free in a way.
Which leads me to discussing her parents.
Now Elizabeth and Darcy might get my literary otp tag, but truly THE literary otp for me will always be Marisa and Asriel. I mean how do you possibly get any better than two people who loved each other, didn't give a fuck about each other at the same time as never forgetting and giving up on the possessive hold of each other, ended the corrupt nature of religion, and tore the universes apart in a way before giving their lives up so their daughter could live. IT'S JUST SO MUCH. ALWAYS SO MUCH. WAY TOO MUCH.
It's interested to me that while Marisa undergoes a lot of transformation through the trilogy that Asriel doesn't. He's very set on his course of action, inhabiting almost the I hate destiny, but I'm gonna do my destiny and all that. Whereas Marisa goes through being the married woman, the scorned woman who takes up power in the Church, the mother who finds her child again and wants her as a tool, the mother who wants to now protect her child, the woman who reunites with her lover, and the woman who dies for her daughter. It's just fascinating all the roles and skins Marisa gets to inhabit without ever losing herself.