Philip Pullman
By: Scholastic Point
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Total reviews: 53
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
Almost, but not quite... 4 out of 5 stars.
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"The Tiger in the Well" begins almost three years after the events of "The Shadow in the North". (Note: if you haven't read "Shadow", skip this review; it gives away important plot details.) Sally, still unmarried and living in London with her 2 year old daughter (by the deceased Frederick), Harriet, is occupied with a successful financial advisory business. Her friends Jim Taylor and Webster Garland are out of the country, exploring South America. This intricately plotted novel is set in motion when a process server arrives at Sally's home to deliver a notice of divorce. Initially dismissive (for she has neither seen nor heard of the man purporting to be her husband), Sally discovers that she is the target of an insidious plot to rob her of everything she holds dear, including her daughter. Driven out of her home, a fugitive from the police, Sally learns that her enemy is as dangerous as any she has faced. Pushed to the brink of total surrender, Sally receives help from an unexpected quarter, and she begins to fight back.
"The Tiger in the Well" is an engrossing journey through Victorian London. Much of the story is devoted to frank and disturbing descriptions of the depraved condition of London's poor, and to Sally's discovery of the injustices inherent in the system from which she had gained such a comfortable living. Her fugitive existence brings Sally face to face with these harsh and unsettling realities. In this sense, Pullman writes in the tradition of Charles Dickens, who famously used his serialized novels to protest the injustices of his time and suggest many progressive reforms. Yet, as one might expect from a modern writer, Pullman is more explicit (and much angrier) in his criticism, and he rails at length against the system as a whole. Social and political criticism are not a new feature to the series. "The Ruby in the Smoke" revolved around the British Empire's active participation in the opium trade, an indisputably true and shameful episode in its history. "The Shadow in the North" was somewhat less historical (with its bullet-spewing locomotive), yet Axel Bellman was a sort of personification of every scientist who ever worked on a weapon, and the book (written when the Cold War was still on) is clearly critical of the role of technology in improving the welfare of society. Thus, the socialist criticism that underscores "The Tiger in the Well" is neither good nor bad... it frames the story and provides some historical perspective. At least we know where Pullman stands, politically. I am no socialist, but the fact that he is makes me no less appreciative of his writing... for the most part.
The problem is, Pullman lets his political agenda get the best of his sense of the story and the unfolding drama, and his sermonizing ultimately intrudes upon the novel's true climax, when Sally defiantly confronts her tormentor, the man who has attempted to steal her daughter and brought her to near-total despair. As I read the novel, I was totally caught up by Pullman's narrative. Yet in this scene, when I should have been in the author's power, Pullman strikes a brutally discordant note. Sally, courageous as ever, does not inveigh against her enemy's total immorality. Instead, she starts jabbering on about how he's not really evil, how the system is evil, and through her agony she has discovered that she has herself been a part of that evil. Pullman is using Sally's speech to state explicitly, for the benefit of the reader, what has already been made completely apparent in the narrative itself. It's akin to those "gee Dad I sure learned that X is bad for Y" moments at the end of episodes of old sitcoms--totally unnecessary and condescending. An excerpt from Sally's speech gives the sense of the problem: "...Just as I made that family starve and put those men out of work and drove that man mad with misery and despair so that he tortured his child with a red-hot poker. I did it, without knowing it. So I'm guilty, me and all the other shareholders and speculators and capitalists. You know where evil is? It's not just in you. It's in... pretending not to know things when once you've seen them. Seeing something bad and shutting your eyes, turning away."
The speech is totally implausible and somewhat ridiculous. A passage with the same tenor would have been mildly annoying at any point in the narrative, but its timing proves to be particularly poor and quite damaging to the book. What human being, in such a moment, would take the opportunity to inform her enemy (as loathsome a man as ever drew breath) that she has, in effect, discovered that Marx is right. I was half expecting her to go on about how the workers need to seize the means of production. Even if one concedes that these books are meant for adolescents (and I submit that they're fit for adults as well), Pullman is guilty of grossly underestimating the intelligence of his audience. He would have benefitted from a more courageous editor, someone to point out that Sally's speechifying was bringing the plot to a screetching halt. It's truly unfortunate, because this is almost a great book. As a mystery, it is better (and darker) in most respects than the previous two in the series. For moments of pure pathos, it is rivaled only by Frederick's death in "Shadow". As usual, Pullman's characters are wonderfully written, particularly the supporting cast. So it is almost great. But, as my father is fond of saying, "Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." What we are left with is a great story and a poorly executed finale.
Editorial Review:
In London in 1881, twenty-four-year-old Sally finds her young daughter and her possessions assailed by an unknown enemy, while a shadowy figure known as the Tzaddik involves her in his plot to defraud and exploit the hordes of Jewish immigrants pouring into the country.
