'His Dark Materials' Can Shed Some Light On a Few Things

I’ve just finished reading the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy by Philip Pullman, the latest in a series of interesting reads I’ve had. Before I start in on the controversy and the higher ideas I will say first that the series is, at its heart, a grand adventure. It takes you into different worlds and introduces you to unforgettable characters. That capacity to transport the reader alone makes it a worthy read. I could go on for pages, I’m sure, about the story and magic of the worlds that Pullman creates in these books, but today I’m more interested in the ideas, and the backlash.

Do a simple search for “The Golden Compass” or “His Dark Materials” and it won’t take you long to find boycotts, outraged citizens, and pamphleteers foaming at the mouth. The movie, which waters down the book’s more controversial aspects, is described as subversive- an innocent fantasy movie designed to lure unwitting children to the blasphemy of Pullman’s books. And what awaits them in these dark tomes? No less than a story about a man- and two children- on a mission to kill God.

Have you caught your breath yet? I’ll wait.

Now that we’ve calmed down, I’ll clarify. The “god” that is to be killed is called the Authority, the being from which the earthly religions derive their own authority. The Authority represents the mindless and absolute oppression that has been handed out since the beginning of religion. The intended target- the Authority- is the suppression and villainization of things like sexuality, freedom of choice and thought, and free inquiry. This is what the characters set out to kill (even if some of them don’t know it) and this is what we, as individuals, should set out to kill as well.

In reverse order: free inquiry. I’ll spare you the history lesson of tortures, excommunications, and backwards thinking of the Middle Ages, when the Magisterium- I mean the Church- really did have all of the authority. Today’s challenge to free inquiry into matters formerly dictated by dogma and doctrine has taken on the form of the dangerously ridiculous: “creation science,” a term so oxymoronic that many scientists a hundred years ago would have scoffed at it. Since Darwin we have been able to piece together our past as a species and continually renew our knowledge with the discovery of new information- old fossils, new genetics, and much more in between. We can start to give real answers to questions like, “How did we come to be as we are?” and “What will we become as we go on?” They may not be the answers we always imagined (the answers being “monkeys” and “smarter monkeys”, respectively) but they hold a truth that our imaginations did not, and that is infinitely valuable. And I say that creation science is dangerous because one of the main goals of its followers is to have it taught to children in schools. In Lyra’s world, Jordan College of Oxford stands for reasoning and science against the enforced doctrines of the Magisterium. We shouldn’t be teaching children to believe; we should be teaching them to think, to ask, and to stand up and argue when necessary.

Freedom of choice and thought: this is more of a personal issue for me. For most of my life I’ve looked at the world a certain way and was confused to learn that others saw it differently. I listened to religion, liked some of the stories, but I don’t think I ever believed they were true, and I certainly don’t now. To learn that many people took it all very, very seriously was somewhat of a surprise to me, and I learned that apparently there was something I wasn’t getting so I had best not say anything at all. I don’t pretend for a minute that I was ideologically suppressed or harmed in any way, but the general population all seem to agree that God is good and the Bible is true and you must be some kind of sick in the head to say anything different. Go ahead, tell somebody you’re an atheist and watch how quickly the room clears. You’d be better off listing your hobbies and interests as “seal clubbing” and “baby punching.” The point is that saying anything different has been taboo for so long that even the most open-minded among us have a hard time getting past the initial knee-jerk reaction and saying, “Well, he’s free to think so.”

Sexuality: a big one for the HDM trilogy, especially in the last fifty pages or so. Lyra, the main character, spends most of the series being referred to as a child, just on the cusp of adolescence. In fact, many of story’s main plot points center around the maturation of children into adults. By the series’ end, Lyra does in fact cross that thin veil between child and adult and takes her first shaky steps. All of this happens not in a “Beauty of womanhood, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret?” kind of way, but in a “Gosh, isn’t it wonderful that we get to experience this and that this is all a unique and celebrated part of being human?” kind of way.

There’s more, of course, much more. The tragedy of Balthamos and Baruch, the gay angels. What our daemons (souls) say about us and how we choose what kind of people we become. What we leave behind after death, and what we should hope to carry with us. And as I mentioned above, there is a quest, an adventure, a story. I encourage those who haven’t read the books to do so, no matter what side of the ideological fence you lean toward.

William Donahue, of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said of the His Dark Materials trilogy, “I don’t want to see those books flying off the shelves at Christmas. I want them to be collecting dust.”

Well, Bill, if you read the books then you know that I and fans of Pullman’s work couldn’t agree with you more. I can think of nothing better than for those books to be around for ages, collecting Dust.

P.S.- In the books, a daemon is a person’s soul, manifested outside of their body but very deeply connected the person. It takes the form of an animal, always the opposite gender of its person. The daemon’s form settles when a person reaches adolescence, and the form it chooses usually reflects something of that person’s personality, e.g. servants tend to have dog daemons, because they are obedient and loyal.

I like to think my daemon would be a she-bear. What would yours be?