His Dark Materials

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Summary

Lyra and Will, hero and heroine, find themselves fighting together to thwart the evil plans of Lord Asriel and the church. In Lyra's world people have daemons (pronounced as we would the word demon). These are creatures which live with each character, representing, it would appear, their personality, sexuality and emotions. Lord Asriel has learned the secret of crossing the bridge between worlds but can only generate the power necessary to do this through a cruel process on children called intercision - separation from one's daemon.

In Volume 1 (Northern Lights), Lyra takes possession of the first of two tools that will help in their battle, an alethiometer. She is one of very few people who can use this compass to discover the truth and foretell the future. She joins a group of people who have suffered the loss of many children and heads north to search for her friend Roger, also missing. She meets and makes some unusual allies.

In Volume 2 (The Subtle Knife), the second tool is a knife which can cut a hole between parallel worlds. Lyra meets Will, a boy from our own world, who seeks information about his father. Will finds, and learns to use, the knife.

In Volume 3 (The Amber Spyglass), Lyra and Will pursue their foretold destiny to bring liberation and discover the cost at which this can be won.

For Pullman there is no kingdom of heaven but a republic. The battle between the church (organized religion) and the Authority (ultimate power) in the novels is a bitter power struggle. Christianity is depicted as an expensive mistake which wastes its victims' lives.

There are summaries on the following web-sites:

www.randomhouse.com/features/pullman/
rambles.net/fictionNS.html
www.iplus.zetnet.co.uk/nonfiction/northern.htm
www.iplus.zetnet.co.uk/nonfiction/subtle.htm

A search engine will come up with hundreds of sites where the novels are discussed.

Background

Philip Pullman is a teacher turned writer. He taught courses on the Victorian novel and on the folk tale, and also a course examining how words and pictures fit together. He lives in Oxford, and he writes in a shed at the bottom of his garden. He is married and has two sons.

He maintains that stories are the way to communicate truth. In his acceptance speech for the Carnegie medal, England's highest honour for children's fiction, Pullman said this:

'We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. 'Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten, but 'Once upon a time' lasts forever.'

His writing in this trilogy makes it clear that he is against organized religion and any attempt to control the thoughts of others. He sees the individual and the now as important. Perhaps this is a rebellion against his upbringing by a clergyman grandfather after his own father died.

Questions

1. Given Pullman's claims for the power of the story we should expect to find that his writing will have deep metaphors within. It does, and they work on many levels. Sometimes he come across as anti C S Lewis - Pullman's spiritual meaning is that we live for today, for now and should not concern ourselves with future kingdoms. He says as much in the final volume. What do you think his 'big picture' is?

2. These things all crop up in the books. What do you think they represent?

• The Alethiometer
• Angels
• The Authority
• The Church
• Daemons
• Dust
• The Subtle Knife
• The General Oblation Board
• Spectres

3. Who are the goodies and the baddies? Do they appear to correspond to Pullman's own views and prejudices? What about ours?

4. The Amber Spyglass contains a most comforting and sustained piece of writing about dying. Dying loses its sting, but not death. What can this teach us?

5. 'It is safe to let children read this book because if they are old enough to understand that the book works on a deeper level than just a story they will be old enough to evaluate it too.' Is this a fair assessment? Or is this a risky book to give to our kids?

6. How can we defend organized religion against such a subtle attack?

7. The use of the daemon gives an opportunity for Pullman to play with the concept of personality, emotion and even sexuality. Later he uses the same device to personalize death. What issues does this raise?

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