His Dark Materials

These novels kept me company on those late night tube rides back from the East End this last winter. I poured through the first two books, but stalled somewhere in the middle of book three. In my latest phase of finishing off loose ends, I've finally completed the last in Phillip Pullman's trilogy. Collectively known as His Dark Materials trilogy, Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass are kind of the dark side of the Harry Potter phenomenon. They're part science fiction/fantasy, part social commentary, part thinly-veiled attack on organized religion.

I was interested in them because of an interview with Pullman I read in the Guardian ages ago. He seemed like a fascinating man with something to say. Then I learned he wrote childrens books. It turns out he's quite the celebrity author here in the UK.

Last year went a bit Pullman crazy here in London. The National Theatre did a two-play series on the novels that we didn't manage to get to. It looked amazing and got great reviews. There's also talk of a movie, but last I heard, the producers were feeling pressure to remove all the Church references. How lame is that? It's like the DaVinci Code without Jesus. We'll see if anything comes of it.

Book one, Northern Lights, takes place in an Oxford that is similar to the one we know in this world, with differences. Everyone has their own animal daemon, a sort of soul-made-visible, that is a constant companion and guide. As children, these animals are free to shape-shift at will, expressing the moods of the child. It's only when we reach adulthood that the animals find their final form and remain fixed. It's a pretty intriguing idea, and fans of the books will ask you what animal your daemon is.

Our hero, twelve-year-old Lyra is pulled away from her childhood days of sneaking around college campuses and playing by the canals when her uncle arrives with terrifying news from the North. Soon, she's plunged into a world filled with experimental theologians, arctic explorers, and an army of armor-clad polar bears.

The second book, The Subtle Knife, takes us deeper into strange worlds. We meet ancient witches and horrible soul-eating Spectres. The subtle knife is a tool that can slice through dimensions into parallel worlds. The book is the best of the three because we follow different characters on their various adventures, the pacing just works better than book one. Of course, all this jumping from one land to another, leaving holes in the fabric of space, has it's consequences, dark forces are gathering.

Book three, The Amber Spyglass, goes a bit off the rails as our heroes enter the world of the dead, and ultimately find a way to liberate the ghosts of the deceased into union with the greater universe. Ok.

Throughout all this there's the undercurrent of attacks on organized religion. I'm all for anything that encourages people to think for themselves. The Church in this country is understandably not amused by the popularity of the books, but like a lot of things that gets people up in arms, I found the actual attacks in the books rather mild. Sure, there's all this stuff about living your own life without the need of a Higher Being, and the death of God, but I read it as more a coming-of-age story than anything.

Everyone needs an escapist fantasy every now and then, but I may be a bit old for these books. They're good enough in the juve-adult lit world, but I need heroes that don't whine so much in their passive British ways. After all the drama of three novels, escaping from prisons in the frozen tundra, battling tiny warriors that ride on the backs of dragonflies, and Lyra nearly getting her daemon sliced off, these being English books, in the end they all go home and have a nice cup of tea.

Check them out here at Amazon.