Blog post 4 ~Petra (SPOILER ALERT)

The Golem's Eye
Jonathan Stroud
Finished



The book starts with the war between Britain and Prague. This gives us a little history, and also introduces us to Gladstone's staff, which we see later in the book, as well as golems, which we also see at the end of the book. It also illustrates the relationship between Bartimaeus and Queezle, which I find adorable and I'm sad that (SPOILER!) Queezle dies later. There are many things that cause conflict in this story, like the golem appearing and crashing through London, Kitty joining the Resistance and raising hell, Nathaniel going to Prague only to find that he has to come back empty-handed, and so on. In Prague, Nathaniel meets a contact, but the contact gets killed before he can give any information but a note containing an address. Nathaniel goes to that address, and, whoop-de-doo, finds the creator of the parchment needed to fuel a golem. He's making a second parchment, but he's very weak because of the parchments he made draining his lifer to work. The man, Kafka, was employed by a man Nathaniel and Bartimaeus already met in the first book. Sadly, Kafka decides to sacrifice himself to destroy the parchment, and the employer escapes, so Nathaniel has to return to London without any spoils. The author uses descriptive language, and artfully entwines stories of different characters together, so while you're reading the story of one character, you go: "Oh! I know that guy! Yeah, that makes sense." He creates conflict and kills off the right characters to make you want to keep reading, though the tension is often broken by Bartimaeus's sarcastic comments, which are guaranteed to make you laugh. I really love the ending of this book, because it ends relatively happily for Kitty, despite the whole of the Resistance killed by an utterly insane demon. I think she made the right decision by sending Jakob (the one who got burned by the spell) off to America so no one can use him to get  at Kitty. I'm curious to see what Kitty has in mind for the Government. I definitely think there's more to this story, because there's a third book, Ptolemy's Eye. I really want to read that one, thanks to The Golem's Eye. I would definitely not change the ending of this book, because it's really wonderful and it gives a great conclusion to every story - Nathaniel's, Kitty's and Bartimaeus's. I adored this book, and I'm sure you would to. Bartimaeus forever! ;)