Sorry - I was having a senior moment when I mentioned Tolstoy. I meant to write Dickens.
I'm certainly not going to defend everything in Pullman's book. I agree the novel's worldbuilding as a whole is uneven (arguably also inconsistent). Exposition at moments of crisis always looks especially clunky - this was one of my few criticisms of Frances Hardinge's A Face Like Glass - and is no less so when indulged in by Asriel and Coulter. But the opening works, for me: it establishes a good deal about Lyra's character; it sets the reader an interesting puzzle regarding the world they're in; it has tension (will she be discovered? Will Asriel drink the poisoned wine?); and the occasion of Asriel's reporting back to the college is one when an infodump is narratively plausible. Overall, I think that couple of chapters gets the balance about right - for my taste, at any rate.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-03-15 01:15 pm (UTC)I'm certainly not going to defend everything in Pullman's book. I agree the novel's worldbuilding as a whole is uneven (arguably also inconsistent). Exposition at moments of crisis always looks especially clunky - this was one of my few criticisms of Frances Hardinge's A Face Like Glass - and is no less so when indulged in by Asriel and Coulter. But the opening works, for me: it establishes a good deal about Lyra's character; it sets the reader an interesting puzzle regarding the world they're in; it has tension (will she be discovered? Will Asriel drink the poisoned wine?); and the occasion of Asriel's reporting back to the college is one when an infodump is narratively plausible. Overall, I think that couple of chapters gets the balance about right - for my taste, at any rate.