Sunday, December 7, 2008
Last Blog
Man I am glad I kept a running journal throughout the class that made it easier for me to Blog when I needed to. Thanks for a wonderful semester and the great blogs from my peers. Can't wait to read more in Oral traditions!
Pullman and C.S Lewis
I don't think the His Dark Materials series made a good case for atheism in the first place. I didn't know Phillip Pullman intended to pit himself against C.S. Lewis but while I read the books they did make me start comparing with the Chronicles of Narnia. I was dissapointed. The characters were as rich, the worlds were as imaginative, but in the end His Dark Materials simply did not resonate. Whereas Lewis' tales touched me to the quick with profound truths, Pullman's were clever but in the end left more questions than answers. Lewis tells you how the world was created, how evil came into it, how the Creator defeated the evil, and what is to come. Pullman tells you that "religion" is oppressive and cruel, and that God is a sham. If Pullman was trying provide an atheistic counterweight to Lewis' Christian worldview he did not do a good job. Here are my reasons for thinking so:1. The religion he criticises isn't a true reflection of religion in the first place, it's his own take on religion. He set up a straw man to attack.2. The universe he depicts seems more pantheistic than atheistic. Everything is made from "dark material", particles that are somehow conscious, and when they die they dissipate into these particles again. There is a belief system in operation. In the story there is a atheistic scientist who was formerly a Christian, however as the story unfolds she comes to accept the pantheistic worldview because she starts to interact with the dark material and learn its nature.3. The whole story is about the battle of good against evil. If a pantheistic or atheistic worldview is being promoted, where does this concept of good and bad come from?My personal take-away from comparing Pullman with Lewis is that an atheist cannot write children's fiction. This is not a facetious observation. Three characteristics of children's stories are that 1) they are moralistic; 2) they are imaginative, i.e. creative; and 3) their purpose is for edification in some way or other. Where does an atheist draw right and wrong from? Don't atheists deal in proven facts rather than whimsy and fantasy? What words of encouragement would a true atheist have for others that does not mean imposing his own personal "truths" on them? No, there is no atheistic children's story because children with untainted minds are nearer to the Kingdom of God and cynical atheistic thoughts wouldn't appeal to them. While Pullman's intention to introduce atheism to children is reprehensible, it is ironic that in writing something that has to appeal to children he is forced to abide by the three characteristics of children's stories and thereby forced into a realm where atheists cannot survive.By the way, C.S. Lewis was himself an atheist who came to the conclusion that atheism did not fly. He then contemplated pantheism and Christianity, and in the end became a Christian
I thought this was interesting...Good job Tony Watkins
Secret history
A key bone of contention for Pullman is the issue of authority, which is of course why Pullman gives God the title of ‘The Authority’. There is a sense in which the Authority and the Magisterium are just manifestations of misused power. But given Pullman’s comments quoted above, it seems clear that he does have religion – rather than authority generally – in his sights. The Authority’s title distances him in the reader’s mind from the Christian God; it doesn’t feel like Pullman is talking about the same being. But in case we fail to make the connection, Balthamos spells it out:
The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, EI, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty – those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves – the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are. (AS p.33)
How can ‘God’ be an angel? In Pullman’s underlying ‘creation myth’, matter became conscious of itself and generated Dust. Some of it ‘condensed’ into the first angel – a being of pure Dust. This new being was fully conscious, and when he began to see other angels condensing out of the Dust he realised what an opportunity he had. Since he came first, he could tell the subsequent angels that he was God and had created them. The angels loved and obeyed him, but the Sophia (Wisdom), the youngest and most beautiful angel, discovered the truth about the Authority who subsequently expelled her. There was an angelic rebellion, but the Authority defeated it and imprisoned the rebels in one of the many worlds. The Sophia told them about the Authority’s lies to human beings (and conscious beings in other worlds), and the rebels escaped to bring enlightenment, wisdom and full consciousness to the poor creatures under the Authority’s rule.
This myth draws heavily on second century Gnosticism, but also inverts it. Gnosticism is all about gnosis – knowledge, in particular secret, esoteric knowledge open only to a privileged few. For the early Gnostics, the secret knowledge about reality was that the world was not created by God, but by an evil Demiurge (a lesser or false god); the true God is unreachable and unknowable. The Gnostics believed that matter is essentially evil, but Sophia, one of the angelic beings, managed to put a spark of true spiritual nature (pneuma) into human beings. Pullman doesn’t believe this but sees it as a good story with ‘immense explanatory power: it offers to explain why we feel . . . exiled in this world, alienated from joy and meaningfulness and the true connection we feel we must have with the universe.’[5] Where Pullman turns this on its head is in the attitude towards the phsyical. Gnosticism sees it as evil; Pullman sees it as something to be enjoyed and celebrated.
Pullman’s myth also draws on Paradise Lost’s angelic war, Satan’s escape from his prison, and his tempting of Adam and Eve. By recasting God as the demiurge impostor, Pullman transforms him into the bad guy, and casts the rebels (including the Sophia) as the good guys. On this view, the Fall is a good thing (see chapters 10 and 11). This is an ideal scenario for Pullman: a materialist universe which has found its own wisdom fighting off the deceptions and impositions of a ‘god’ who is really nothing of the sort. Archbishop Rowan Williams points out that:
Someone [the demiurge or the Authority] is trying to pull the wool over your eyes . . . and wisdom is an unmasking . . . If you have a view of God which makes God internal to the universe, that's what happens.[6]
Williams is saying that if you see God merely as part of the physical universe, then you automatically see him as a deceiver. The historically orthodox Christian understanding of God and the universe only works if God is transcendent.
A key bone of contention for Pullman is the issue of authority, which is of course why Pullman gives God the title of ‘The Authority’. There is a sense in which the Authority and the Magisterium are just manifestations of misused power. But given Pullman’s comments quoted above, it seems clear that he does have religion – rather than authority generally – in his sights. The Authority’s title distances him in the reader’s mind from the Christian God; it doesn’t feel like Pullman is talking about the same being. But in case we fail to make the connection, Balthamos spells it out:
The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, EI, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty – those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves – the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are. (AS p.33)
How can ‘God’ be an angel? In Pullman’s underlying ‘creation myth’, matter became conscious of itself and generated Dust. Some of it ‘condensed’ into the first angel – a being of pure Dust. This new being was fully conscious, and when he began to see other angels condensing out of the Dust he realised what an opportunity he had. Since he came first, he could tell the subsequent angels that he was God and had created them. The angels loved and obeyed him, but the Sophia (Wisdom), the youngest and most beautiful angel, discovered the truth about the Authority who subsequently expelled her. There was an angelic rebellion, but the Authority defeated it and imprisoned the rebels in one of the many worlds. The Sophia told them about the Authority’s lies to human beings (and conscious beings in other worlds), and the rebels escaped to bring enlightenment, wisdom and full consciousness to the poor creatures under the Authority’s rule.
This myth draws heavily on second century Gnosticism, but also inverts it. Gnosticism is all about gnosis – knowledge, in particular secret, esoteric knowledge open only to a privileged few. For the early Gnostics, the secret knowledge about reality was that the world was not created by God, but by an evil Demiurge (a lesser or false god); the true God is unreachable and unknowable. The Gnostics believed that matter is essentially evil, but Sophia, one of the angelic beings, managed to put a spark of true spiritual nature (pneuma) into human beings. Pullman doesn’t believe this but sees it as a good story with ‘immense explanatory power: it offers to explain why we feel . . . exiled in this world, alienated from joy and meaningfulness and the true connection we feel we must have with the universe.’[5] Where Pullman turns this on its head is in the attitude towards the phsyical. Gnosticism sees it as evil; Pullman sees it as something to be enjoyed and celebrated.
Pullman’s myth also draws on Paradise Lost’s angelic war, Satan’s escape from his prison, and his tempting of Adam and Eve. By recasting God as the demiurge impostor, Pullman transforms him into the bad guy, and casts the rebels (including the Sophia) as the good guys. On this view, the Fall is a good thing (see chapters 10 and 11). This is an ideal scenario for Pullman: a materialist universe which has found its own wisdom fighting off the deceptions and impositions of a ‘god’ who is really nothing of the sort. Archbishop Rowan Williams points out that:
Someone [the demiurge or the Authority] is trying to pull the wool over your eyes . . . and wisdom is an unmasking . . . If you have a view of God which makes God internal to the universe, that's what happens.[6]
Williams is saying that if you see God merely as part of the physical universe, then you automatically see him as a deceiver. The historically orthodox Christian understanding of God and the universe only works if God is transcendent.
I agree with this article...I WANT A DAEMON!
'Golden Compass' author Philip Pullman inspires thrills -- and wrath
By CLAIRE DEDERERSPECIAL TO THE P-I
A writer sits quietly at his desk. He imagines a little girl. Something about her inspires him. He begins to write. The girl is joined by other characters: an explorer father; an ice-queen mother; a band of sea-faring Gypsies; a polar bear dressed in armor; a witch preoccupied with politics. The man sends these characters racing across the Arctic, up in hot-air balloons, through university halls, and down into abject dungeons. He's a British middle school teacher with a couple of mid-list novels under his belt, and he doesn't know that he's creating a universe that will bring down the wrath of Christians -- and thrill readers all over the world.
Philip Pullman published "The Golden Compass" in 1995. It's the first volume in the richly imagined trilogy of children's books called "His Dark Materials," which includes "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass." The trilogy follows Lyra -- an urchin who lives in a universe not unlike our own -- as she battles the totalitarian forces of the Magisterium, a global religious consortium.
The series has drawn three distinct readerships. It was first picked up, unsurprisingly, by young adults. With her sharp tongue, stout heart and impressive gift for lying, Lyra makes a pretty delicious preteen heroine. She starts life as the ward of Jordan College in Oxford, but her peaceful existence comes to an end when neighbor children begin to disappear. Mysterious adults are snatching kids off the street and spiriting them, it is whispered, to an ominous fortress far in the North. When they take Lyra's best friend, Roger, she decides she must save him. And so her propulsively plotted journey begins.
By her side every step of the way is her daemon, Pantalaimon. The daemon is Pullman's most charming invention. In Lyra's world, each human has a constant animal companion. This daemon is more than a pet; it embodies the human's very soul. For readers not long past the age of horse worship and kitten adulation, the notion of the daemon has proved irresistible.
Word of mouth spread, and adults became avid Pullmanites as well. The New York Times called the books "Harry Potter for grown-ups." Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize was given to the final novel, the first time the prize ever was awarded to a children's book. Adults have been drawn, in part, by Pullman's gorgeous, imagistic prose. He writes fantastical scenes in a genuinely moving way, as when Lyra tends the wounds of Iorek Byrnison, king of the armored polar bears: "So the small human bent over the great bear-king, packing in the bloodmoss and freezing the raw flesh till it stopped bleeding. When she had finished, her mittens were sodden with Iorek's blood, but his wounds were stanched."
This kind of immediate, detailed writing has converted readers (like myself) who normally won't have anything to do with fantasy.
Pullman also demonstrates an appetite for big, challenging themes. He scavenges mythology and history for material: One page might subtly steal from Oedipus, the next from survivors' stories of the Holocaust, the next from Milton. Pullman isn't afraid to wrestle with the meaty stuff of good and evil, and good hardly ever turns out to be on the side of the church. His villains are religious hypocrites; his heroes are self-determined freethinkers.
This conflict reaches a climax in the final novel, when Lyra achieves her destiny, which involves killing God himself. This last bit of plotting brought Pullman another audience: Christians, who have pilloried the series. Now "The Golden Compass" has been made into a film, and Christians -- or at least their highly vocal, self-appointed representatives, such as the Catholic League -- have undertaken a campaign to boycott the film. (Is it just me, or does the name the Catholic League conjure up some shady, diabolical organization from a 1950s comic book?) They've flooded Amazon and other Web sites with posts, wherein they warn parents that Pullman is an "atheist!" and that in the final novel of the series "the children actually kill God!"
I, for one, find this outcry strangely moving. Not that I agree with these bossy handwringers; quite the opposite. But the fact that they care so much seems to me astonishing. It's a story worthy of Pullman himself: A man alone at his desk conjures a vision of a universe so free and happy that it terrifies perfect strangers.
By CLAIRE DEDERERSPECIAL TO THE P-I
A writer sits quietly at his desk. He imagines a little girl. Something about her inspires him. He begins to write. The girl is joined by other characters: an explorer father; an ice-queen mother; a band of sea-faring Gypsies; a polar bear dressed in armor; a witch preoccupied with politics. The man sends these characters racing across the Arctic, up in hot-air balloons, through university halls, and down into abject dungeons. He's a British middle school teacher with a couple of mid-list novels under his belt, and he doesn't know that he's creating a universe that will bring down the wrath of Christians -- and thrill readers all over the world.
Philip Pullman published "The Golden Compass" in 1995. It's the first volume in the richly imagined trilogy of children's books called "His Dark Materials," which includes "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass." The trilogy follows Lyra -- an urchin who lives in a universe not unlike our own -- as she battles the totalitarian forces of the Magisterium, a global religious consortium.
The series has drawn three distinct readerships. It was first picked up, unsurprisingly, by young adults. With her sharp tongue, stout heart and impressive gift for lying, Lyra makes a pretty delicious preteen heroine. She starts life as the ward of Jordan College in Oxford, but her peaceful existence comes to an end when neighbor children begin to disappear. Mysterious adults are snatching kids off the street and spiriting them, it is whispered, to an ominous fortress far in the North. When they take Lyra's best friend, Roger, she decides she must save him. And so her propulsively plotted journey begins.
By her side every step of the way is her daemon, Pantalaimon. The daemon is Pullman's most charming invention. In Lyra's world, each human has a constant animal companion. This daemon is more than a pet; it embodies the human's very soul. For readers not long past the age of horse worship and kitten adulation, the notion of the daemon has proved irresistible.
Word of mouth spread, and adults became avid Pullmanites as well. The New York Times called the books "Harry Potter for grown-ups." Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize was given to the final novel, the first time the prize ever was awarded to a children's book. Adults have been drawn, in part, by Pullman's gorgeous, imagistic prose. He writes fantastical scenes in a genuinely moving way, as when Lyra tends the wounds of Iorek Byrnison, king of the armored polar bears: "So the small human bent over the great bear-king, packing in the bloodmoss and freezing the raw flesh till it stopped bleeding. When she had finished, her mittens were sodden with Iorek's blood, but his wounds were stanched."
This kind of immediate, detailed writing has converted readers (like myself) who normally won't have anything to do with fantasy.
Pullman also demonstrates an appetite for big, challenging themes. He scavenges mythology and history for material: One page might subtly steal from Oedipus, the next from survivors' stories of the Holocaust, the next from Milton. Pullman isn't afraid to wrestle with the meaty stuff of good and evil, and good hardly ever turns out to be on the side of the church. His villains are religious hypocrites; his heroes are self-determined freethinkers.
This conflict reaches a climax in the final novel, when Lyra achieves her destiny, which involves killing God himself. This last bit of plotting brought Pullman another audience: Christians, who have pilloried the series. Now "The Golden Compass" has been made into a film, and Christians -- or at least their highly vocal, self-appointed representatives, such as the Catholic League -- have undertaken a campaign to boycott the film. (Is it just me, or does the name the Catholic League conjure up some shady, diabolical organization from a 1950s comic book?) They've flooded Amazon and other Web sites with posts, wherein they warn parents that Pullman is an "atheist!" and that in the final novel of the series "the children actually kill God!"
I, for one, find this outcry strangely moving. Not that I agree with these bossy handwringers; quite the opposite. But the fact that they care so much seems to me astonishing. It's a story worthy of Pullman himself: A man alone at his desk conjures a vision of a universe so free and happy that it terrifies perfect strangers.
Class Presentations
I love the presentations I have seen so far in our class. The first group seemed to take a very scholarly approach to Baum and THe Wizard of Oz. I loved the history about why the story starts in Kansas. I loved that there is an animal called a lyger...who would have thought!
THe second group seemed to go more along the lines on what we are doing in our class presentation. That is all I can say so I won't spoil it. If I do have one piece of advice DO NOT EAT BEFORE YOU COME TO CLASS UNLESS YOU WANT TO WEAR IT!
THe second group seemed to go more along the lines on what we are doing in our class presentation. That is all I can say so I won't spoil it. If I do have one piece of advice DO NOT EAT BEFORE YOU COME TO CLASS UNLESS YOU WANT TO WEAR IT!
Class Presentations
I love the presentations I have seen so far in our class. The first group seemed to take a very scholarly approach to Baum and THe Wizard of Oz. I loved the history about why the story starts in Kansas. I loved that there is an animal called a lyger...who would have thought!
THe second group seemed to go more along the lines on what we are doing in our class presentation. That is all I can say so I won't spoil it. If I do have one piece of advice DO NOT EAT BEFORE YOU COME TO CLASS UNLESS YOU WANT TO WEAR IT!
THe second group seemed to go more along the lines on what we are doing in our class presentation. That is all I can say so I won't spoil it. If I do have one piece of advice DO NOT EAT BEFORE YOU COME TO CLASS UNLESS YOU WANT TO WEAR IT!
Jesus and Pullman
Christ is mentioned in passing and the agents of God in the church do wear crucifixes. But there is no discursive effort to engage with Christ in the trilogy. God is not interested in saving people, largely, I presume, because they are not his beloved creation.
The absence of Christ seems a somewhat less scrupulous move of Pullman’s, since saving sacrifice is given considerable prominence in the work. As the story develops, the rebels, the heroes of the work, take on the ‘great enterprise’ of saving people from this tyrant God, and from death (which is his prison-house).
Their leader is Lord Asriel, Lyra’s father, who has often treated Lyra with indifference. Asriel is joined by Lyra’s mother, also long absent from Lyra’s life. Both come to discover Lyra’s importance in defeating the forces of God. And both come to realise that they do in fact love Lyra profoundly. This moment comes in their climactic fight with Metatron, when they further realise that defeating him and stopping him from reaching Lyra will mean sacrificing their own lives. And so that is what they do out of their love for Lyra, so that her work of saving all peoples might be achieved.
Their sacrifice of love is coupled with Lyra’s own sacrifice of separation. Lyra’s parents’ deaths enable her to complete her task of freeing souls from the land of the dead. But to do this Lyra must undergo separation from Pan, her d¾mon (in Lyra’s world humans have a living, speaking manifestation of their soul/consciousness that takes the form of an animal and is called their d¾mon). This is explained as the most terrible, costly separation for someone from Lyra’s world — a great forsaking of relationship — but it ultimately leads to her rescue of souls.
So Pullman ignores Christ, making no effort to address his sacrificial death on the cross out of his great love for us, or his suffering for our sake, paying the price to set us free. At the same time he explicitly denounces Christianity as the cause of our problems: ‘The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all’, Lyra is told (The Amber Spyglass, p.464). And yet without shame he transfers to the rebels a story of their costly sacrifice in the name of finally defeating God and claiming victory over death.
It is true of course that if you strip Christianity of a creator-God, who therefore has no right or place as our judge, then really you have no Christianity at all. For what Christ came to do in being punished for us by that righteous judge would become utterly meaningless. But to say that Pullman’s story is not anti-Christian, merely ‘anti-religious’ will not do. How many children among the general population do you know who have a reasoned grasp of what Christ achieved on the cross to set us free, that they can see an aping distortion of it when it comes along?
The absence of Christ seems a somewhat less scrupulous move of Pullman’s, since saving sacrifice is given considerable prominence in the work. As the story develops, the rebels, the heroes of the work, take on the ‘great enterprise’ of saving people from this tyrant God, and from death (which is his prison-house).
Their leader is Lord Asriel, Lyra’s father, who has often treated Lyra with indifference. Asriel is joined by Lyra’s mother, also long absent from Lyra’s life. Both come to discover Lyra’s importance in defeating the forces of God. And both come to realise that they do in fact love Lyra profoundly. This moment comes in their climactic fight with Metatron, when they further realise that defeating him and stopping him from reaching Lyra will mean sacrificing their own lives. And so that is what they do out of their love for Lyra, so that her work of saving all peoples might be achieved.
Their sacrifice of love is coupled with Lyra’s own sacrifice of separation. Lyra’s parents’ deaths enable her to complete her task of freeing souls from the land of the dead. But to do this Lyra must undergo separation from Pan, her d¾mon (in Lyra’s world humans have a living, speaking manifestation of their soul/consciousness that takes the form of an animal and is called their d¾mon). This is explained as the most terrible, costly separation for someone from Lyra’s world — a great forsaking of relationship — but it ultimately leads to her rescue of souls.
So Pullman ignores Christ, making no effort to address his sacrificial death on the cross out of his great love for us, or his suffering for our sake, paying the price to set us free. At the same time he explicitly denounces Christianity as the cause of our problems: ‘The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all’, Lyra is told (The Amber Spyglass, p.464). And yet without shame he transfers to the rebels a story of their costly sacrifice in the name of finally defeating God and claiming victory over death.
It is true of course that if you strip Christianity of a creator-God, who therefore has no right or place as our judge, then really you have no Christianity at all. For what Christ came to do in being punished for us by that righteous judge would become utterly meaningless. But to say that Pullman’s story is not anti-Christian, merely ‘anti-religious’ will not do. How many children among the general population do you know who have a reasoned grasp of what Christ achieved on the cross to set us free, that they can see an aping distortion of it when it comes along?
Questions about God
The most important of Pullman’s changes (to me) is that God in His Dark Materials is not the sovereign creator of the universe. He is merely the first angelic being who took it upon himself to lay claim to the title ‘God’. This is a catastrophic demotion. God, without any rights to call himself this, is unsurprisingly cast as a usurper, a tyrant, a despot. In fact he is an ageing figure who is reaching the end of his power and who is handing everything over to Metatron, the chief of his army and a terrifying figure. God is not a figure of love or mercy or grace. He is not a God of relationship, as he is absent from human affairs, except in that he opposes any freedom and individual thought because it is a threat to his power. Since he is not our creator, the giver of life, he prefers that humans are benign automatons. Since he is not the rightful judge of the universe, he is a tyrant.
In some respects this is so far removed from the true God that one might well think that this is no God at all. But Pullman explicitly identifies him as the God of Judeo-Christianity: ‘The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty — those were the names he gave himself. He was never the creator’, Will is told (The Amber Spyglass, p.33). Pullman wants to have his cake and eat it: to make God no God at all, but label him specifically as the God of the Christian church.
In some respects this is so far removed from the true God that one might well think that this is no God at all. But Pullman explicitly identifies him as the God of Judeo-Christianity: ‘The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty — those were the names he gave himself. He was never the creator’, Will is told (The Amber Spyglass, p.33). Pullman wants to have his cake and eat it: to make God no God at all, but label him specifically as the God of the Christian church.
hmmm....
The Amber Spyglass was the first children’s book to win the Whitbread prize; the trilogy came third in the BBC’s Big Read poll. The work continues to do well. Northern Lights was number three in the children’s bestsellers list at the end of 2004. And the two-part stage production is currently enjoying a second run at the National Theatre.
There is no need to ask why it has been so successful. The story is wonderfully inventive, one in which there are parallel worlds full of extraordinary people and creatures. It depicts with brilliant clarity the lives of its two young protagonists — Lyra, a defiant girl with a penchant for lying, and Will, a restless boy who has struggled with isolation and learnt to disguise himself from the eyes of the world. Together, the trilogy explores the theme of childhood friendship and portrays the process of adolescent self-awakening in a way that is as tender as you might find.
If the work has been taken to heart by so many readers, it has also caused consternation among many Christians. This is because the larger story, in which the children become involved, is the battle to overthrow God from his pedestal and establish ‘true freedom’ for all conscious beings. It is a cosmic tale, in which Pullman replays John Milton’s Paradise Lost, where a war in heaven precedes the fall of man, but in such a way that the story is reversed: in Pullman, God loses the war and the fall becomes the rebels’ final triumph.
This theological concern has prompted Christians to be rightly wary of the work. At the same time many like to avoid seeming unnecessarily extreme. We are familiar with books that routinely cause a stir. Is this, for example, like the Harry Potter series, where talk of banning a largely traditional boarding school story seems over the top? Is there more to be worried about in Pullman and, if so, what?
His Dark Materials is indeed some way from the Harry Potter series, taking as it does a theological framework and putting forward explicit, if reductive, views about God, Christianity and the church. The first book, Northern Lights, is a genuinely gripping tale. But Pullman’s agenda emerges here, and then as the books progress, increasingly dominates all that happens.
Christians should be aware of how his trilogy has made widespread and acceptable a version of Christianity that is little more than a caricature. The first of the film adaptations, due for release next year, will undoubtedly refocus attention on the books and add to this.
This article has been prompted by a hope that Christians who do choose to read the work (especially if, for example, their children read the work at school) will do so as critically as possible, aware of exactly how the author pulls off his version of the truth. But it is not my aim to respond to Pullman in an equally reductive manner. Instead, what I think we need to do is ask some straightforward questions of the trilogy and the worldview it offers.
There is no need to ask why it has been so successful. The story is wonderfully inventive, one in which there are parallel worlds full of extraordinary people and creatures. It depicts with brilliant clarity the lives of its two young protagonists — Lyra, a defiant girl with a penchant for lying, and Will, a restless boy who has struggled with isolation and learnt to disguise himself from the eyes of the world. Together, the trilogy explores the theme of childhood friendship and portrays the process of adolescent self-awakening in a way that is as tender as you might find.
If the work has been taken to heart by so many readers, it has also caused consternation among many Christians. This is because the larger story, in which the children become involved, is the battle to overthrow God from his pedestal and establish ‘true freedom’ for all conscious beings. It is a cosmic tale, in which Pullman replays John Milton’s Paradise Lost, where a war in heaven precedes the fall of man, but in such a way that the story is reversed: in Pullman, God loses the war and the fall becomes the rebels’ final triumph.
This theological concern has prompted Christians to be rightly wary of the work. At the same time many like to avoid seeming unnecessarily extreme. We are familiar with books that routinely cause a stir. Is this, for example, like the Harry Potter series, where talk of banning a largely traditional boarding school story seems over the top? Is there more to be worried about in Pullman and, if so, what?
His Dark Materials is indeed some way from the Harry Potter series, taking as it does a theological framework and putting forward explicit, if reductive, views about God, Christianity and the church. The first book, Northern Lights, is a genuinely gripping tale. But Pullman’s agenda emerges here, and then as the books progress, increasingly dominates all that happens.
Christians should be aware of how his trilogy has made widespread and acceptable a version of Christianity that is little more than a caricature. The first of the film adaptations, due for release next year, will undoubtedly refocus attention on the books and add to this.
This article has been prompted by a hope that Christians who do choose to read the work (especially if, for example, their children read the work at school) will do so as critically as possible, aware of exactly how the author pulls off his version of the truth. But it is not my aim to respond to Pullman in an equally reductive manner. Instead, what I think we need to do is ask some straightforward questions of the trilogy and the worldview it offers.
The Subtle Knife
In this, the second volume of His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman continues to develop the grand Miltonic scheme of an emerging masterpiece of modern Fantasy. New characters join the mythically resonant cast of the first novel, Northern Lights (reviewed elsewhere in infinity plus); new worlds are added likewise, fresh contrasts of humanity's innocence and experience; the basis for the Armageddon of the final installment, The Amber Spyglass, is laid. The pace of invention and action does not slacken.
By the end of Northern Lights, it was clear that the trilogy's underlying conflict was between two principles: that of Authority (God, the Calvinistic Church of the Magisterium, inflexible Destiny, dogma, control), personified in the heroine, Lyra's, mother, Mrs Coulter, head of the Church's sinister Oblation Board; and that of Human Free Will (the Promethean or Satanic, the aspiring, the charismatically hubristic), embodied by Lyra's father, the resourcefully and industriously rebellious Lord Asriel.
One of the most impressive features of this book is the manner in which it takes that established opposition and weaves it, complexly, into a wide range of subplots, characterizations, and symbols, so that what is normally the flattest part of a trilogy, the section that must somehow keep the narrative going between the creativity of its opening and the drama of its climax, is constantly fascinating, a set of copiously imaginative variations on simple themes, subtly working together. This orchestration, in musical analogy, marks Pullman as Fantasy's pre-eminent Composer.
And so a symphony of plot elements proceeds. The action moves between three parallel universes: the steampunk milieu of Lyra's version of the Earth, with its scheming clerical bureaucrats and sinister presentiments of catastrophic war; our late Twentieth Century, with its urban hardships and blinkered secular obsessions; and a third alternate world, once a paradise of happiness and moderation, resembling then a full flowering of the potentials of the Italian Renaissance, but now ravaged by soul-eating Spectres, most of its surviving inhabitants orphaned children, in whom the Spectres have no interest. Lyra has fled the first Earth, a boy, Will, the second; they meet in the third, which acts as a sort of crossroads of the multiverse. Both protagonists have animal familiars; both are shadowed by their fathers, whom they have lost, and for whom they must search; both are attached by destiny to artifacts of cosmic significance, Lyra to the golden compass that measures Truth, Will to the subtle knife that can detect and open the gates between the worlds. Joining forces, they develop in tandem, maturing and learning in a deftly rendered harmony, as if they are complementary aspects of a single whole. The implication mounts that this growing-up, the theme of so many YA novels, is in this text the key to the coming to adulthood of the entire human species.
For Pullman is writing a manner of sequel to Paradise Lost. The last war in Heaven, between God and the rebel angels, was, as in Milton's account, lost by the latter tens of thousands of years ago, leading to the enslavement of all sentient beings to the iron Will of God. Now, in Asriel, there is a new Satan, who plans a new uprising. The angels, and their creations (the human species) have a second chance at free choice, free will, which might be understood as true adulthood. As Lyra and Will mature, they mature for all of us. By this token, Pullman's other subplots - quests by various adults, the aeronaut Lee Scoresby's to protect Lyra, the witch Serafina Pekkala's for the same, Will's father's for Will the knife bearer, Mrs Coulter's for the daughter she would kill, Asriel's for victory over the God who restrains him - are mere reflections of the central quest the children undertake. All adults, the world itself: these are also children struggling to grow up. And this has vast ramifications.
The Subtle Knife verges on Science Fiction in its speculative underpinnings. Scientists in our Oxford, helped along by Lyra, determine that the "Dust" the godly Magisterium fears, the dark matter that may constitute the bulk of the universe's mass, is made up of sentient elementary particles; these are, in a nutshell, great hosts of rebel angels, in a continuation of the fusion of theology and physics hinted at in Northern Lights. Matter itself is rebelling against the adamantine physical laws that have restrained its free behaviour - but the Renaissance world invaded by Spectres contains authentic winged angels, and the vampiric Spectres are in turn corrupted angels; so physical particles and spiritual metaphors are one and the same in Pullman's scheme. The Created wish to be free of their Creator, and this applies to every atom as to every thinking being. The Armageddon in The Amber Spyglass will be something to read.
It could be argued that the very setting of His Dark Materials, its range of alternate worlds, is a metaphor for the free will the rebels seek: all options realized, in parallel, rather than the stable monolithic reality Authority desires. Pullman's sympathy certainly lies with the rebellious instinct. But there are very clear hints that he also believes a balance must be struck: his narrative focus is on the striving, unhubristic Lyra and Will, not on their ambitious parents; and the Spectre-afflicted world seems very much like an Eden destroyed by the alchemic meddling that created the subtle knife. Perhaps there are proper limits to knowledge and aspiration; perhaps Authority has a place.
By the end of Northern Lights, it was clear that the trilogy's underlying conflict was between two principles: that of Authority (God, the Calvinistic Church of the Magisterium, inflexible Destiny, dogma, control), personified in the heroine, Lyra's, mother, Mrs Coulter, head of the Church's sinister Oblation Board; and that of Human Free Will (the Promethean or Satanic, the aspiring, the charismatically hubristic), embodied by Lyra's father, the resourcefully and industriously rebellious Lord Asriel.
One of the most impressive features of this book is the manner in which it takes that established opposition and weaves it, complexly, into a wide range of subplots, characterizations, and symbols, so that what is normally the flattest part of a trilogy, the section that must somehow keep the narrative going between the creativity of its opening and the drama of its climax, is constantly fascinating, a set of copiously imaginative variations on simple themes, subtly working together. This orchestration, in musical analogy, marks Pullman as Fantasy's pre-eminent Composer.
And so a symphony of plot elements proceeds. The action moves between three parallel universes: the steampunk milieu of Lyra's version of the Earth, with its scheming clerical bureaucrats and sinister presentiments of catastrophic war; our late Twentieth Century, with its urban hardships and blinkered secular obsessions; and a third alternate world, once a paradise of happiness and moderation, resembling then a full flowering of the potentials of the Italian Renaissance, but now ravaged by soul-eating Spectres, most of its surviving inhabitants orphaned children, in whom the Spectres have no interest. Lyra has fled the first Earth, a boy, Will, the second; they meet in the third, which acts as a sort of crossroads of the multiverse. Both protagonists have animal familiars; both are shadowed by their fathers, whom they have lost, and for whom they must search; both are attached by destiny to artifacts of cosmic significance, Lyra to the golden compass that measures Truth, Will to the subtle knife that can detect and open the gates between the worlds. Joining forces, they develop in tandem, maturing and learning in a deftly rendered harmony, as if they are complementary aspects of a single whole. The implication mounts that this growing-up, the theme of so many YA novels, is in this text the key to the coming to adulthood of the entire human species.
For Pullman is writing a manner of sequel to Paradise Lost. The last war in Heaven, between God and the rebel angels, was, as in Milton's account, lost by the latter tens of thousands of years ago, leading to the enslavement of all sentient beings to the iron Will of God. Now, in Asriel, there is a new Satan, who plans a new uprising. The angels, and their creations (the human species) have a second chance at free choice, free will, which might be understood as true adulthood. As Lyra and Will mature, they mature for all of us. By this token, Pullman's other subplots - quests by various adults, the aeronaut Lee Scoresby's to protect Lyra, the witch Serafina Pekkala's for the same, Will's father's for Will the knife bearer, Mrs Coulter's for the daughter she would kill, Asriel's for victory over the God who restrains him - are mere reflections of the central quest the children undertake. All adults, the world itself: these are also children struggling to grow up. And this has vast ramifications.
The Subtle Knife verges on Science Fiction in its speculative underpinnings. Scientists in our Oxford, helped along by Lyra, determine that the "Dust" the godly Magisterium fears, the dark matter that may constitute the bulk of the universe's mass, is made up of sentient elementary particles; these are, in a nutshell, great hosts of rebel angels, in a continuation of the fusion of theology and physics hinted at in Northern Lights. Matter itself is rebelling against the adamantine physical laws that have restrained its free behaviour - but the Renaissance world invaded by Spectres contains authentic winged angels, and the vampiric Spectres are in turn corrupted angels; so physical particles and spiritual metaphors are one and the same in Pullman's scheme. The Created wish to be free of their Creator, and this applies to every atom as to every thinking being. The Armageddon in The Amber Spyglass will be something to read.
It could be argued that the very setting of His Dark Materials, its range of alternate worlds, is a metaphor for the free will the rebels seek: all options realized, in parallel, rather than the stable monolithic reality Authority desires. Pullman's sympathy certainly lies with the rebellious instinct. But there are very clear hints that he also believes a balance must be struck: his narrative focus is on the striving, unhubristic Lyra and Will, not on their ambitious parents; and the Spectre-afflicted world seems very much like an Eden destroyed by the alchemic meddling that created the subtle knife. Perhaps there are proper limits to knowledge and aspiration; perhaps Authority has a place.
Found this on CNN
This is an interesting article on cnn when it comes to ideas of what is CHildrens materials and what is adult, what is real and what is fantasy...hope you enjoy it as much as I did
Weird Blog I found on Pullman...guy needs a hug
I am an atheist, and I found the religion-bashing in this book intrusive, pointless, and stupid at every level. It was stupid as philosophy, because Pullman does not give any reasoning for his position. It is stupid as character development, because neither hero nor heroine has any connection with the religious issue. It is stupid as plot development, because it does not spring out of the previous events nor draw to its conclusion, whatever that is: where is the Republic of Heaven we were promised? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I might have forgiven him, if he had kept an interesting (or even coherent) plot, character development, or a sense of magic and wonder. Instead we have a homo angel (as a good guy!) and major characters changing their personalities and dying offstage for no reason. Did anyone understand the point of the scene where Lyra basically kills all the ghosts in the afterlife? I personally am an atheist (among other reasons) because I do not believe in an afterlife. If there WERE an afterlife, however, I would have no desire to annihilate the disembodied minds found there. Rather, I would look on it as a severe medical condition, something to be cured, or at least a scientific curiosity, something to be studied. Instead the author seems to think that an infinite life is a bad thing, and that death is a good thing. Huhn?Basically, Mr. Pullman let his unreasonable hatred of religion overwhelm his sense of how to tell a story. Having written one good book full of promise, and a mediocre sequel, he concludes his trilogy with a disconnected sequence of scenes--I cannot call it a plot--and halts the action to stand on his soapbox and sell us his opinion.Don't get me wrong, I LIKE reading atheist speeches--when that is what I payed for, by a speechmaker who knows how to make a speech (see, for example, Tom Paine, or James Ingersoll). But when I pay for a book of supernatural children's adventure and get a lame pro-atheist speech instead, I have been cheated. Why did I bother to go to the bookstore? I could have stayed at home and written an editorial myself. Pullman's low opinion of religion is one I share, but I am deeply offended to see such an oafish defense of my position. I don't want him on my side: he is an embarrassment to intelligent atheists. Frankly, I'd rather read Narnia. CS Lewis may be my intellectual enemy, but he is an honest and worthy enemy. Better a hundred times than a worthless ally like Pullman.
hmmm
The anti-religion message is undeniable, although I prefer to think that the religion portrayed is a particularly extreme version of Calvinism which took over the Church, with an Authority who is not really a God but some sort of impostor. Plus the witches seem to have their own sort of faith separate from the Church.I thought that the scene of Iorek reforging the Knife That Was Broken was pretty good, but no, there wasn't enough of him after that.
This is kind of a cool interview with Lyra from The GOlden Compass
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGijvhOzuXk -
semi-summary of Golden Compass
The cornerstone of the forthcoming fantasy film The Golden Compass, based on the first novel in the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, is the mysterious device from which the tale borrows its title. The golden compass, more formally referred to as the alethiometer, is an extraordinarily intricate device able to answer any question formed in the mind of the user. Created centuries ago by a metaphysical scientist, the truth-telling, future-seeing machine points not to true North like an ordinary compass, but to Truth itself. The alethiometer's face is ornamented with 36 arcane symbols, each of which may convey different meanings in combination with any of the others and according to the subtleties of the machine's motions. As you can imagine, this makes it incredibly difficult to read. In fact, there's no-one left in the world that possesses the ability, except for the story's young heroine, Lyra.
"The alethiometer's 36 symbols have more than 10 or 20 meanings themselves," explains director Weitz "According to the way the needle moves across these symbols, you can interpret it as an answer to your questions. There's some kind of absolute truth out there that guides the needle of the alethiometer. So, it's an immensely powerful object. It allows you to know anything and everything, but it's incredibly difficult to use. Everyone who has used the alethiometer has had to reference these huge tomes of symbols and their meanings and interpretations in order to get anything about of these devices. But Lyra, for reasons we will discover in part in this movie and in full in later movies in the series, has the ability to read it without these books. She's able to do this through long practice, through her inner nature, and through training by people who have folk wisdom of various kinds like the Gyptians in the story."
Lyra, played by actress Dakota Blue Richards, is given the device by the Master of Jordan College before being sent away to London. She soon finds herself on the run carrying the sought-after artifact, up against the sinister forces of the Magisterium -- an oppressive organization that seeks to destroy free will.
"The alethiometer's 36 symbols have more than 10 or 20 meanings themselves," explains director Weitz "According to the way the needle moves across these symbols, you can interpret it as an answer to your questions. There's some kind of absolute truth out there that guides the needle of the alethiometer. So, it's an immensely powerful object. It allows you to know anything and everything, but it's incredibly difficult to use. Everyone who has used the alethiometer has had to reference these huge tomes of symbols and their meanings and interpretations in order to get anything about of these devices. But Lyra, for reasons we will discover in part in this movie and in full in later movies in the series, has the ability to read it without these books. She's able to do this through long practice, through her inner nature, and through training by people who have folk wisdom of various kinds like the Gyptians in the story."
Lyra, played by actress Dakota Blue Richards, is given the device by the Master of Jordan College before being sent away to London. She soon finds herself on the run carrying the sought-after artifact, up against the sinister forces of the Magisterium -- an oppressive organization that seeks to destroy free will.
I thought this was interesting when it came to Pullman and gnosticsism
Home Characters Dictionary Author Quizzes Messages
Listen to the latest episode -->PHILIP PULLMAN WEBCHAT The webchat is now finished. Thanks for all your questions, the response was tremendous. We're sorry that we did not have time to ask everything. Read the author's answers below... From Luke Flatley Q: Did you begin with a short story and want to know more or did you have the idea of a trilogy in your head already when you started? Philip Pullman:A: No it wasn't a short story that became a long one - it was an incident that belonged to a long story. You can sort of sense the presence of the rest of the story there and how big it is even before you know exactly what it consists of. So I knew from the beginning that I was going to be writing something long. From Jonathon Hewlett-Davies Q: Did you have any strange dreams that inspired you to write the story? Philip Pullman:A: No, I don't rely much on dreams because it's always oddly disappointing when you try and tell someone about a dream that you've had. The thing that seemed so exciting and mysterious to you is often as dull as ditchwater to somebody else. So I try to make things up when I'm awake. From Babak Q: I've heard you're writing a new book called The Book of Dust. Is this true? Will you write more about the Republic of Heaven and how it's built? Philip Pullman:A: The Book of Dust will be not a continuation of the trilogy, but other stories about the same world and the same characters. It hasn't got very far yet so I can't tell you exactly what's in it and in any case I'd rather keep things quiet until they're finished. From Hilary Belden Q: How much have you been influenced by William Blake? Philip Pullman:A: A great deal. His work has always been very important to me and I consider him one of the greatest writers and indeed artists who ever lived. I read him constantly and continue to be amazed. From Tommy Torquemada Q: How has Colin Wilson influenced your work? Was it through him that you became interested in the writing of David Lindsay? Philip Pullman:A: Yes, it was Colin Wilson in whose work I first heard about David Lindsay. Wilson has written very interestingly on David Lindsay and I am grateful to him for making me aware not only of Lindsay, but several other people it would have taken me a lot longer to find otherwise. From Dave Stone Q: I remember reading your first book, Galatea and have been trying to find a copy of it for years. Is there any possibility that it might ever be reprinted? Philip Pullman:A: There is a publisher in America who wanted to re-issue Galatea recently but on re-reading it myself all I could see was what was wrong with it. I remain fond of the novel, but I don't think it's good enough for me to feel happy to see it in print again. From Cathy Q: Are daemons born at the same time as their humans, or do they somehow appear later on? Philip Pullman:A: This is a difficult one, because I've never had to think about it. I've never had to talk about how daemons come into being because I didn't write a scene in which a human character was being born. The gynaecology of daemons is a closed book to me. What I do know is about how they get their names: the parents' daemons choose the name of the child's daemon. From Angela Nowell Q: In the books, the name of Mrs Coulter's daemon is never given. And in the dramatisation, his name is given as Ozymandias – is this taken from Shelley's poem? Philip Pullman:A: I didn't choose that name and to be frank I don't think I would have done. I imagine that the scriptwriter did get it from Shelley's poem, but you'd really have to ask her why she went for that name. From Alex, age 9 Q: Do you ever wish you had an alethiometer? Would you use it a lot or only a little? Philip Pullman:A: Yes, it would be very useful, wouldn't it? But it does take a long time to ask a question and get the answer. And I think it would be tempting to rely on it too much. We're probably better off without them. From Graham King Q: Did you base the alethiometer on Ramon Lull's medieval art for seeking the truth, his Ars Combinatoria, based on three circles each divided into topics or symbols which can be individually turned to produce endless connections? Philip Pullman:A: Well, how interesting. I didn't know about this. My source for the alethiometer was partly the emblem books of the Renaissance and partly the memory theatre as described in a wonderful book by Frances Yates called The Art of Memory. I was aware of Ramon Lull but not about this Ars Combinatoria, which sounds extremely fascinating. Thank you for telling me about it. From Charlotte Lansley (12) Q: I would really like to know where you got the name Aesahættr, which is really difficult to pronounce Philip Pullman:A: I made it up from two Norse words meaning God and death. I know it's not very easy to say, which is one very good reason for everyone to buy the audio tape! From Darren Q: Where did the word panserbjørne come from? Philip Pullman:A: It's another word I made up from the Nordic languages: the bjørne part is bear, and panser means armour. So putting the two bits together, it was easy to make the word I have now. From Alex Bleasdale Q: Do daemons have free will? If your daemon commits a crime, would you, the owner be held responsible? Philip Pullman:A: Very interesting. That raises all sorts of possibilities and suggests all kinds of stories too. However, you have to remember that you and the daemon are not separate beings - you are one being in two bodies. From William Greenacre Q: The name Lyra is very unusual - where does it come from? Philip Pullman:A: The word lyra means lyre, or harp. There's a constellation Lyra and, although I knew the word, I'd never heard it used as a name. As far as my writing of the story is concerned, it just appeared with the girl. As soon as she was there, I knew she was Lyra. I have met one or two Lyras since then and at least two people known to me have called a new baby daughter Lyra. But it isn't a very common name, although I like it a lot. From Robin Bertrand Q: I don't understand how Lyra becomes the new Eve. What is the temptation and how does Mary act as the tempter? Philip Pullman:A: What Mary does is to tell a story about falling in love. When Lyra hears it, she suddenly understands something about herself and Will which she hadn't seen before. Mary makes the connection even closer by the next day by giving her some fruit, which Lyra offers to Will in the same gesture that Mary described in her story. This is the moment when the two children begin to leave their childhood behind and this to my mind is what the story of Adam and Eve is all about. It's the moment we left our childhood behind and began to grow up. From Sarah Matheson Q: How important is research when you are writing a story? Philip Pullman:A: It's important for the background. But the background is where it must stay. The only function of doing research is to help you make up stuff convincingly. If you put your research undiluted into a story you soon find yourself writing a text book instead of a novel. From Bonnie R. Calderwood Q: How many things did you invent for your books and then leave out? Philip Pullman:A: Well, there were quite a lot of them and the reason I left them out was that they didn't help the story move forward. You have to be ruthless with your own inventiveness if you want readers to follow you through a story. From Caleb Woodbridge (17) Q: What books have you enjoyed reading recently? Are there any books you'd recommend in particular? Philip Pullman:A: I'm reading with great pleasure at the moment a book by Colin Thubron called In Siberia. I'm also reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and a book I read recently and was very impressed by is Alasdair Gray's Lanark. From Beth Q: The angel told Lyra that she read the alethiometer by grace. Where did Lyra get that grace from and why does she lose it and have to work to get that ability back? Philip Pullman:A: Grace is a mysterious quality which is inexpicable in its appearance and disappearance. It's disappearance in Lyra's case symbolises the loss of innocence but the fact that she can regain it through work and study symbolises the fact that only when we lose our innocence, can we take our first steps towards gaining wisdom. From Michael Newman Q: Do you think children are encouraged to be writers and artists at school? How would you change our schools to bring out the creative nature of children? Philip Pullman:A: The first thing I would do is give teachers the freedom to teach without testing children all the time. Testing is a curse. Targets are a curse. No child should be tested at all. No child should suffer the indignity of being part of a target for a school to have to meet. Let's make education humane again. From Rory McLean Q: What is the difference between Ghosts, which were human once, and Angels, which were also human once? Why do the Ghosts dissolve when they return to a real world, when the Angels don't? Philip Pullman:A: Not all angels were humans once. It is very rare for a human ghost to become an angel. Most of the time they want to return to the physical world and dissolve into the air as the ones in the story do. From Ruth Addison Q: How long did it take you to write each book? Philip Pullman:A: Two years for each of the first two, and three years for The Amber Spyglass. From Jenny,12 Q: How did you come up with the name His Dark Materials Philip Pullman:A: Well, if you look at the very beginning of Northern Lights you'll find a quotation from the Milton's poem Paradise Lost which contains the phrase "his dark materials". When I was looking for a title I was thinking about dark matter which is the subject of Dr Mary Malone's research, among other things, and the phrase "his dark materials" seemed to echo that very well. From Russell Q: Would you call yourself a Gnostic? Philip Pullman:A: Not really. The essence of gnosticism is its rejection of the physical universe and the whole tendency of my thinking and feeling and of the story I wrote is towards the celebration of the physical world. Nevertheless, gnosticism is a fascinating and very powerful and persuasive system of thought. From Taras Young Q: Do you use a computer in your work? Philip Pullman:A: Yes, but not to compose the story on in the first place. The first draft is always written by hand on A4 narrow-lined paper with a ball-point pen. I put it on the computer once the first draft is finished and then I can fiddle with it until my publishers get fed up and tell me to hand it over quickly. From Jane WrinQ:How do you keep up with your ideas? Do you carry a dictaphone or note pad?Philip Pullman:A: I don't use either of those. If an idea is any good, I'll remember it. And if isn't any good, I'll forget it. From Anna Q: Are any of your family writers? Philip Pullman:A: No, none, I'm the only one. From Sarah Spencer Q: Do you believe in the many worlds theory? Philip Pullman:A: It's a very attractive thing to believe. It's full of interesting possibilities and endless opportunities for the storyteller. As far as I can understand the scientific background to it, it does seem to make sense in terms of the laws of physics. But I really don't understand much about that and I'm content to rely on experts who take it seriously. From Roger Jackson Q: Are there linguistic messages in the names of your characters? Philip Pullman:A: I don't think I'd call them messages. Names are chosen for several reasons. One is euphony - that is I want them to sound good. Another is to indicate the part of the world that a character comes from. For example, Russian characters will have Russian names. But I can't think of an example of a name with which I wanted to convey a message. Or if there was one, I've forgotten what the message was. So it obviously wasn't very important. From Rebecca Cooney Q: Have you got any hints or tips for aspiring young writers? Thankyou. Philip Pullman:A: Yes I have. The most helpful thing I can tell you is to write exactly what you want to write. This will probably be the sort of thing you like to read. But what you have to do is to give all your attention to your own preferences and not take the slightest bit of notice of anyone else's. It's only when you write something intended to please yourself alone that you'll succeed in pleasing other people - strange but true!
Listen to the latest episode -->PHILIP PULLMAN WEBCHAT The webchat is now finished. Thanks for all your questions, the response was tremendous. We're sorry that we did not have time to ask everything. Read the author's answers below... From Luke Flatley Q: Did you begin with a short story and want to know more or did you have the idea of a trilogy in your head already when you started? Philip Pullman:A: No it wasn't a short story that became a long one - it was an incident that belonged to a long story. You can sort of sense the presence of the rest of the story there and how big it is even before you know exactly what it consists of. So I knew from the beginning that I was going to be writing something long. From Jonathon Hewlett-Davies Q: Did you have any strange dreams that inspired you to write the story? Philip Pullman:A: No, I don't rely much on dreams because it's always oddly disappointing when you try and tell someone about a dream that you've had. The thing that seemed so exciting and mysterious to you is often as dull as ditchwater to somebody else. So I try to make things up when I'm awake. From Babak Q: I've heard you're writing a new book called The Book of Dust. Is this true? Will you write more about the Republic of Heaven and how it's built? Philip Pullman:A: The Book of Dust will be not a continuation of the trilogy, but other stories about the same world and the same characters. It hasn't got very far yet so I can't tell you exactly what's in it and in any case I'd rather keep things quiet until they're finished. From Hilary Belden Q: How much have you been influenced by William Blake? Philip Pullman:A: A great deal. His work has always been very important to me and I consider him one of the greatest writers and indeed artists who ever lived. I read him constantly and continue to be amazed. From Tommy Torquemada Q: How has Colin Wilson influenced your work? Was it through him that you became interested in the writing of David Lindsay? Philip Pullman:A: Yes, it was Colin Wilson in whose work I first heard about David Lindsay. Wilson has written very interestingly on David Lindsay and I am grateful to him for making me aware not only of Lindsay, but several other people it would have taken me a lot longer to find otherwise. From Dave Stone Q: I remember reading your first book, Galatea and have been trying to find a copy of it for years. Is there any possibility that it might ever be reprinted? Philip Pullman:A: There is a publisher in America who wanted to re-issue Galatea recently but on re-reading it myself all I could see was what was wrong with it. I remain fond of the novel, but I don't think it's good enough for me to feel happy to see it in print again. From Cathy Q: Are daemons born at the same time as their humans, or do they somehow appear later on? Philip Pullman:A: This is a difficult one, because I've never had to think about it. I've never had to talk about how daemons come into being because I didn't write a scene in which a human character was being born. The gynaecology of daemons is a closed book to me. What I do know is about how they get their names: the parents' daemons choose the name of the child's daemon. From Angela Nowell Q: In the books, the name of Mrs Coulter's daemon is never given. And in the dramatisation, his name is given as Ozymandias – is this taken from Shelley's poem? Philip Pullman:A: I didn't choose that name and to be frank I don't think I would have done. I imagine that the scriptwriter did get it from Shelley's poem, but you'd really have to ask her why she went for that name. From Alex, age 9 Q: Do you ever wish you had an alethiometer? Would you use it a lot or only a little? Philip Pullman:A: Yes, it would be very useful, wouldn't it? But it does take a long time to ask a question and get the answer. And I think it would be tempting to rely on it too much. We're probably better off without them. From Graham King Q: Did you base the alethiometer on Ramon Lull's medieval art for seeking the truth, his Ars Combinatoria, based on three circles each divided into topics or symbols which can be individually turned to produce endless connections? Philip Pullman:A: Well, how interesting. I didn't know about this. My source for the alethiometer was partly the emblem books of the Renaissance and partly the memory theatre as described in a wonderful book by Frances Yates called The Art of Memory. I was aware of Ramon Lull but not about this Ars Combinatoria, which sounds extremely fascinating. Thank you for telling me about it. From Charlotte Lansley (12) Q: I would really like to know where you got the name Aesahættr, which is really difficult to pronounce Philip Pullman:A: I made it up from two Norse words meaning God and death. I know it's not very easy to say, which is one very good reason for everyone to buy the audio tape! From Darren Q: Where did the word panserbjørne come from? Philip Pullman:A: It's another word I made up from the Nordic languages: the bjørne part is bear, and panser means armour. So putting the two bits together, it was easy to make the word I have now. From Alex Bleasdale Q: Do daemons have free will? If your daemon commits a crime, would you, the owner be held responsible? Philip Pullman:A: Very interesting. That raises all sorts of possibilities and suggests all kinds of stories too. However, you have to remember that you and the daemon are not separate beings - you are one being in two bodies. From William Greenacre Q: The name Lyra is very unusual - where does it come from? Philip Pullman:A: The word lyra means lyre, or harp. There's a constellation Lyra and, although I knew the word, I'd never heard it used as a name. As far as my writing of the story is concerned, it just appeared with the girl. As soon as she was there, I knew she was Lyra. I have met one or two Lyras since then and at least two people known to me have called a new baby daughter Lyra. But it isn't a very common name, although I like it a lot. From Robin Bertrand Q: I don't understand how Lyra becomes the new Eve. What is the temptation and how does Mary act as the tempter? Philip Pullman:A: What Mary does is to tell a story about falling in love. When Lyra hears it, she suddenly understands something about herself and Will which she hadn't seen before. Mary makes the connection even closer by the next day by giving her some fruit, which Lyra offers to Will in the same gesture that Mary described in her story. This is the moment when the two children begin to leave their childhood behind and this to my mind is what the story of Adam and Eve is all about. It's the moment we left our childhood behind and began to grow up. From Sarah Matheson Q: How important is research when you are writing a story? Philip Pullman:A: It's important for the background. But the background is where it must stay. The only function of doing research is to help you make up stuff convincingly. If you put your research undiluted into a story you soon find yourself writing a text book instead of a novel. From Bonnie R. Calderwood Q: How many things did you invent for your books and then leave out? Philip Pullman:A: Well, there were quite a lot of them and the reason I left them out was that they didn't help the story move forward. You have to be ruthless with your own inventiveness if you want readers to follow you through a story. From Caleb Woodbridge (17) Q: What books have you enjoyed reading recently? Are there any books you'd recommend in particular? Philip Pullman:A: I'm reading with great pleasure at the moment a book by Colin Thubron called In Siberia. I'm also reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and a book I read recently and was very impressed by is Alasdair Gray's Lanark. From Beth Q: The angel told Lyra that she read the alethiometer by grace. Where did Lyra get that grace from and why does she lose it and have to work to get that ability back? Philip Pullman:A: Grace is a mysterious quality which is inexpicable in its appearance and disappearance. It's disappearance in Lyra's case symbolises the loss of innocence but the fact that she can regain it through work and study symbolises the fact that only when we lose our innocence, can we take our first steps towards gaining wisdom. From Michael Newman Q: Do you think children are encouraged to be writers and artists at school? How would you change our schools to bring out the creative nature of children? Philip Pullman:A: The first thing I would do is give teachers the freedom to teach without testing children all the time. Testing is a curse. Targets are a curse. No child should be tested at all. No child should suffer the indignity of being part of a target for a school to have to meet. Let's make education humane again. From Rory McLean Q: What is the difference between Ghosts, which were human once, and Angels, which were also human once? Why do the Ghosts dissolve when they return to a real world, when the Angels don't? Philip Pullman:A: Not all angels were humans once. It is very rare for a human ghost to become an angel. Most of the time they want to return to the physical world and dissolve into the air as the ones in the story do. From Ruth Addison Q: How long did it take you to write each book? Philip Pullman:A: Two years for each of the first two, and three years for The Amber Spyglass. From Jenny,12 Q: How did you come up with the name His Dark Materials Philip Pullman:A: Well, if you look at the very beginning of Northern Lights you'll find a quotation from the Milton's poem Paradise Lost which contains the phrase "his dark materials". When I was looking for a title I was thinking about dark matter which is the subject of Dr Mary Malone's research, among other things, and the phrase "his dark materials" seemed to echo that very well. From Russell Q: Would you call yourself a Gnostic? Philip Pullman:A: Not really. The essence of gnosticism is its rejection of the physical universe and the whole tendency of my thinking and feeling and of the story I wrote is towards the celebration of the physical world. Nevertheless, gnosticism is a fascinating and very powerful and persuasive system of thought. From Taras Young Q: Do you use a computer in your work? Philip Pullman:A: Yes, but not to compose the story on in the first place. The first draft is always written by hand on A4 narrow-lined paper with a ball-point pen. I put it on the computer once the first draft is finished and then I can fiddle with it until my publishers get fed up and tell me to hand it over quickly. From Jane WrinQ:How do you keep up with your ideas? Do you carry a dictaphone or note pad?Philip Pullman:A: I don't use either of those. If an idea is any good, I'll remember it. And if isn't any good, I'll forget it. From Anna Q: Are any of your family writers? Philip Pullman:A: No, none, I'm the only one. From Sarah Spencer Q: Do you believe in the many worlds theory? Philip Pullman:A: It's a very attractive thing to believe. It's full of interesting possibilities and endless opportunities for the storyteller. As far as I can understand the scientific background to it, it does seem to make sense in terms of the laws of physics. But I really don't understand much about that and I'm content to rely on experts who take it seriously. From Roger Jackson Q: Are there linguistic messages in the names of your characters? Philip Pullman:A: I don't think I'd call them messages. Names are chosen for several reasons. One is euphony - that is I want them to sound good. Another is to indicate the part of the world that a character comes from. For example, Russian characters will have Russian names. But I can't think of an example of a name with which I wanted to convey a message. Or if there was one, I've forgotten what the message was. So it obviously wasn't very important. From Rebecca Cooney Q: Have you got any hints or tips for aspiring young writers? Thankyou. Philip Pullman:A: Yes I have. The most helpful thing I can tell you is to write exactly what you want to write. This will probably be the sort of thing you like to read. But what you have to do is to give all your attention to your own preferences and not take the slightest bit of notice of anyone else's. It's only when you write something intended to please yourself alone that you'll succeed in pleasing other people - strange but true!
Daemons
I have learned long ago that I enjoy books for the quality of the material and that I shouldn't discriminate based on the intended audience of the book. His Dark MaterialsBook One-The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman is an excellent example of a fantasy novel created for young adults that transcends that category. In my opinion this Young Adult category, in its best sense, means that foul language and sexual content have been eliminated from the story. Although I enjoy a little foul language every once in a while I notice no lack in a novel when it is absent.This novel follows a young scamp of a girl through a world that is very similar to our nineteenth century world. Lyra resides, as an orphan, at Oxford and is thrust, through her own intense curiosity, into a religious and metaphysical maze of treachery. Gradually she is able to piece together answers to a number of strange occurrences that include disappearing children and a beautiful woman with a golden monkey. You see, there is at least one big difference in this world. People have physical representations of their souls, called deamons. While children have deamons that are able to change form at their whim, adults have deamons in a fixed form. This is at the heart the novel and allows Lyra to finally begin to uncover what a mysterious substance, called Dust, really is.Philip Pullman pulls the reader into this piece through a fantastic portrayal and adventure of a young girl that one can easily relate to amidst the strange world that she lives. I was enthralled throughout the whole book as I could never begin to guess what would happen next. The flaws in each character give this story something to sink your teeth into and allow you to truly engross yourself in this tantalizing world. One thing that intrigued me was the idea of a physical soul. Each character seems to have a deep and affectionate bond with their deamons, but I can't help but wonder what would happen to a person filled with self-loathing.
Is that the people with Wolf Daemons? Why is the daemon always the opposite sex as the human? These are interesting thoughts for me
Is that the people with Wolf Daemons? Why is the daemon always the opposite sex as the human? These are interesting thoughts for me
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