Review in Brief: His Dark Materials

I just finished reading the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Nothern Lights/The Golden Compass is the first book in the trilogy; the second is The Subtle Knife and the third is The Amber Spyglass.

There will probably be further commentary on this series from me at some point, but I wanted to say a few things while I was thinking about them (in order to avoid getting bogged down trying to come up with some Huge Epic Post before even mentioning these books on my blog).

Firstly, the His Dark Materials books are most definitely going on my list of Highly Meaningful Fiction (a list which seems perhaps inordinately stuffed in my case with children's fantasy novels, but I firmly belive that there is often a lot more going on in this sort of book than people might think from looking at them in a cursory fashion). Other items on this list include Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet, in addition to Momo and The Neverending Story (both by Michael Ende). (Coraline by Neil Gaiman is also a more recent addition here).

Secondly, the reasons the His Dark Materials books are really, really good in my estimation have a lot to do with just how well they manage to subvert all kinds of dogmatic, institutional ideas and vocabularies. Vocabularies especially, as is evident from the first few pages of the first book, where we learn that humans in that universe have externally-visible, tangible, animal-shaped self/"soul" aspects called daemons.

Now, the word daemon goes back to ancient Greece, where it was used to denote a category of beings somewhere between men and gods, which could be either good or evil, and which served as guardians, intercessaries, etc. However when most modern Westerners see this word it is likely that they are reminded of demon -- those nasty spirits common in Judeo-Christian mythology that do things like possess people and make their heads spin and so forth. You absolutely have to be able to get past that association to see what Pullman is actually talking about in the His Dark Materials sequence, and my guess is that some people probably have a really hard time with that.

There are plenty of elements in these books that would be considered far more controversial than the use of "daemon" to describe a creature that is good rather than evil, but they all share the common characteristic of being called one thing, but not having their nature be at all obvious by the name.

In order to get at the nature of many things, in the books (as in real life to a large extent), you have to be able to look straightforwardly at their content. In the words of one Vorlon, you must "listen to the music, not the song". People might be called witches, or gods, or angels, or bears, or men, or little girls -- but none of these descriptors permit the easy application of predetermined definitions. You have to get to know each thing, and each person, on its/his/her own terms. Certainly you can try and avoid doing that, but you will miss out on so much if you do.

Philosophically, like Pullman, I am an unbeliever when it comes to the particular supernatural entities drawn up and described by humans (and I've yet to meet anything I'd describe as being "outside nature" or "beyond nature" even outside those particular descriptions). That does not stop me from enjoying books by authors like L'Engle who employ Christian vocabulary and themes. And I think that anyone who can manage to get to know the characters and landscapes in His Dark Materials is sure to be richly rewarded, no matter what their philosophical sentiments (though I suspect actual fundamentalists would find fault with L'Engle as much as with Pullman, for she could be quite subversive herself at times!).

The protagonists in His Dark Materials go through so much in the course of their respective journeys through space, time, conflict, and coming-of-age that the experience of reading the books is almost exhausting -- in a good way. These books were not afraid to go to very dark places, but neither did they sink into nihilism; while not everything turned out "ideal" (in the "If Anne Could Decide How Things Went" sense), things did go in directions I could very much respect.

If I had to describe these books in one phrase, that phrase would be "a celebration of reality". While certainly brimming with wild and fantastical adventures, creatures, and epic-scale wonders at every turn, the major theme winding its way through the entire narrative seemed to be one of deep sincere love for all that is truly real. As with the other books on my personal Meaningful Fiction List, His Dark Materials manages the feat of using language but at the same time going beyond language to make achingly beautiful statements about the world we actually live in.