Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Bartimaeus Trilogy - A must read for every fantasy lover

Warning: Spoilers Ahead


It really made me cry. The end that is, just a lot of what ifs remained in my head. Frankly I hated Jonathan Stroud in these moments of my final reading. Why couldn’t he keep Nathaniel alive, kept him and Kitty together. It would have been a perfect ending. I guess there is a bit of Quentin Makepeace in Mr. Stroud too. They had started liking each other and would have been perfect for each other; sparring continuously, feeding off the energies of each other. It just would have been the right ending. At the end it was Nathaniel who was the hero and not Kitty or Bartimaeus. They were the guiding lights and really had the most important role in removing the coat of John Mandrake. However, Nathaniel had done no extraordinary wrong that he should have been killed. It just doesn’t feel right to have them separated, Kitty and Nathaniel that is. She will now be all alone in this world and doesn’t again deserve this ordeal. Seeing that she has always been so alone in this world till now and is in reality still only a teenager, she should have been finally free of the pain life has brought on her for no fault of her. Two souls who had been so alone throughout this time would have found each other. The death of Nathaniel is a jolt more for Kitty than anyone else which is why it is not fair. She had not deserved this ending. Please Jonathan; it will be great if you can come up with an alternate ending and put it up somewhere even if it does not make it to your book. Please…


Having said that, the Bartimaeus Trilogy is a masterful set of books which is a must read for anyone who has the least bit of interest in magic and fantasies that revolve around it. It is definitely not in the Tolkien class or rather ‘The lord of the Ring’ class; however it is definitely an 8 out of 10 if LOTR makes a perfect 10. It does do very well in intricately managing several mysteries that are thrown up at regular intervals and successfully integrating them all in the final book. There are actually no loose ends except for Ms Lutyens who should have been able to see Nathaniel in a better light at the end of the book. It would have mattered probably the most to him.


The real spirit of the first couple of books is literally Bartimaeus. It is actually more fun to read the footnotes than the actual pages. The wit is superb and keeps the reader going even when the story seems to slow down a little. The Amulet of Samarkhand is better than Golems Eye but the Ptolmey’s gate is what makes us gasp. The way in which the artifacts of the first two books are used in the final book and also the way Ptolemy is wound right across the storyline are masterstrokes. It tells you that the author has thought about the ending a lot before actually committing ink to paper. However I actually also got the feeling that a lot of time, the story became visually graphic possibly with one eye on a movie being made in due course. Kitty, Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, Quentin and the rest are really unique characters who keep up their own quite comfortably without taking more than the required space. Except for one bit as to why Kitty takes to magic and summons spirit herself (and if that is so, how come other commoners have not done so earlier and what then will be the difference between Magicians and Commoners) is not really explained properly. That somehow for me limits the ‘essence’ of the trilogy, even if a little bit. Maybe there is a 4th book coming along which will explain this bit and how this magician-commoner difference helped Nathaniel escape at the end of the trilogy. Maybe….


Maybe he can be brought to life if we all promise to buy the books in huge quantities. We promise, it will be one of the biggest bestseller in recent memory. But Please…..