When I first read Phillip Pullman's, His Dark Materials trilogy, I was either 14 or 15. I thought the first two books were fantastic, but the third book was almost nonsensical. This is a view that other people shared with me as well. However, upon discussing the trilogy with others over the years, especially once I was in college, everyone kept talking about how much it discussed religion and was a treatise on Christianity. I felt increasingly foolish because I had never realized this. Sure there was a Church that was in charge of everything, and in the later books there were warring angels and killer priests, but I just figured these were characters in a fantasy story and had no bearing on reality. Such touching naivete, which I also displayed the first time I was told that the Chronicles of Narnia was a Christian allegory. I mean really, who reads seven books about a talking lion and immediately thing, "Aha, that's Jesus!"
I've wanted to re-read His Dark Materials ever since I knew that I had missed something vitally important, and a decade after I first read the books, I finally sat down to the task. And I was simply blown away. From the very first chapter of The Golden Compass it is firmly established that this is a world that is run by the Church and is very much threatened by heretics and freethinkers. I suppose it was easier to see these references when I was actually looking for them. But aside from the religious commentary, I quickly found myself transported to my delighted teenage self, absolutely reveling in the lush detail of this unusual version of England, that seems so familiar, and yet so not. They have different names for everyday objects, they don't have airplanes but instead use zeppelins, their attitudes seem slightly Victorian, and most strikingly, every human has a daemon. I hadn't fully appreciated what a daemon represented, but essentially it is the person's soul, and instead of being inside them, it is a living, breathing, external part of them that serves as a constant companion from birth until death. Children's daemons can assume the shape of any animal and are always changing, but around puberty, they assume a fixed shape that reveals something about that person's nature. For example, a sailor who loves the sea might have a dolphin daemon, while most servants have a dog daemon because they are loyal and willing to take orders. These distinctly fantastical concepts in the otherwise normal setting of Oxford, England is what really made me love this series when I first read it, and again upon re-reading it.
Let's not forget the heroine, Lyra Belacqua, the willful, wild, and wonderful eleven-year old girl who storms through adventures and slowly matures and realizes the enormity of her task as the trilogy progresses. She is the kind of role model you want in a novel intended for young adults (although if my experience is any indication, this book, like all great fantasy series, has so much more to offer to adults). She questions authority, is fiercely independent, prizes loyalty, gets things done, and is brave beyond measure. In the second installment, The Subtle Knife, we are introduced to Will Parry, a boy from our regular world, who is as admirable as Lyra and has his fate entwined with hers. Armed with a knife that can cut openings into all of the myriad worlds that crowd the universe, they set off to complete their unfathomable destinies, and that brings us to the third book, The Amber Spyglass. And this is where I finally learned about what I had missed all those years ago. But before I launch into a discussion of the book's philosophies and my own, I must say one thing: this is a great fantasy series. Whether or not you care to delve into its underpinnings, it is a series worth reading simply for that pure joy of reading superbly crafted fantasy. So the rest of this post is going to be extremely opinionated and serious, but I cannot emphasize enough how much fun these books are if you just want to read a damn good story.
The books are too complicated to craft a thorough summary. So I will just focus on the pertinent "religious" bits. The ultimate battle that everyone is heading into in this trilogy, is one with God, or as the people in Lyra's world refer to him, the Authority. The forces of the Rebellion against the Authority have discovered that he is not the creator of all things. Rather, he was the first angel that was ever created. Who or what created him is not known, I suppose it could be the Big Bang or something equally out of the scope of this particular discussion. Anyway, when the rest of the angels came into being, the Authority tricked them into believing that he had created them all, and thereby established the Kingdom of Heaven that proceeded to rule over all of the worlds that existed in the universe. Priests were his "agents" doing his bidding, making sure that humans and other creatures were kept in line, and he banished any angels who dared to rebel against him. Even the concept of Heaven and Hell is a lie and the Authority has forced all dead spirits to spend eternity in an Underworld (very similar to Hades) where they are tormented by harpies and never get to see the outside world again. Lyra and Will journey to this Underworld and by cutting an opening into another world, they free these spirits, who just dissolve into the air and joyfully become a part of the Nature all around them.
I suppose the passage that best explains the entire philosophy behind the Rebellion is the following:
Many religious groups vehemently opposed this trilogy and its "heretic" messages. They don't want their children to read it - after all, it involves the death of God at one point. There's a lot more in the books about original sin, Adam and Eve, and so on, but you can discover that for yourself if you choose to read the series. One part that struck a chord with me was when a priest sets out to kill Lyra - he has received "Preemptive Absolution," i.e. he has performed sufficient penance to cover the sin of the murder he will eventually commit. This reminded me somewhat of the hoopla surrounding the Pope's visit to Spain earlier this year when he granted priests the right for one week to grant absolution to any woman who had had an abortion. For one week there were women desperate enough to travel to Spain and be absolved of their supposedly unforgivable sin that got them excommunicated from the Church in the first place. While people may argue that you need religion to establish morality, morality is really what established religion in the first place. Some actions are always right or always wrong (e.g. help others, but don't kill them), and such values became the basic tenets of every religion. However, humans are never satisfied with the basics and added tenets and rules regarding other actions that were not so clear-cut, as well as including loopholes (like absolution) for when they broke the rules. While morality and social mores can be fluid, religion usually is not - after all, the Ten Commandments were carved in stone, that's pretty final. This rigidity is why people still find their rights and freedoms infringed upon in this day and age as they are being subjected to the moral code of a bygone era. The supposed need for religion to impose moral order is an antiquated notion, and its power to actually impede scientific, political, and basic human progress is an ever present concern.
Ultimately the His Dark Materials trilogy has a positive message. Lyra and Will are tasked to build their own version of the Kingdom of Heaven in which they urge all human beings to make the most of their time in the world and embrace their lives, because when they die, they will be expected to tell stories of a well-lived life to the harpies and obtain their freedom from the Underworld. If living a good life is the kind of message that you get from your brand of religion, then good for you. But if being religious means being small-minded, proselytizing, and hurting others because they don't believe the same things that you do, you are not really getting the message.
I've wanted to re-read His Dark Materials ever since I knew that I had missed something vitally important, and a decade after I first read the books, I finally sat down to the task. And I was simply blown away. From the very first chapter of The Golden Compass it is firmly established that this is a world that is run by the Church and is very much threatened by heretics and freethinkers. I suppose it was easier to see these references when I was actually looking for them. But aside from the religious commentary, I quickly found myself transported to my delighted teenage self, absolutely reveling in the lush detail of this unusual version of England, that seems so familiar, and yet so not. They have different names for everyday objects, they don't have airplanes but instead use zeppelins, their attitudes seem slightly Victorian, and most strikingly, every human has a daemon. I hadn't fully appreciated what a daemon represented, but essentially it is the person's soul, and instead of being inside them, it is a living, breathing, external part of them that serves as a constant companion from birth until death. Children's daemons can assume the shape of any animal and are always changing, but around puberty, they assume a fixed shape that reveals something about that person's nature. For example, a sailor who loves the sea might have a dolphin daemon, while most servants have a dog daemon because they are loyal and willing to take orders. These distinctly fantastical concepts in the otherwise normal setting of Oxford, England is what really made me love this series when I first read it, and again upon re-reading it.
Let's not forget the heroine, Lyra Belacqua, the willful, wild, and wonderful eleven-year old girl who storms through adventures and slowly matures and realizes the enormity of her task as the trilogy progresses. She is the kind of role model you want in a novel intended for young adults (although if my experience is any indication, this book, like all great fantasy series, has so much more to offer to adults). She questions authority, is fiercely independent, prizes loyalty, gets things done, and is brave beyond measure. In the second installment, The Subtle Knife, we are introduced to Will Parry, a boy from our regular world, who is as admirable as Lyra and has his fate entwined with hers. Armed with a knife that can cut openings into all of the myriad worlds that crowd the universe, they set off to complete their unfathomable destinies, and that brings us to the third book, The Amber Spyglass. And this is where I finally learned about what I had missed all those years ago. But before I launch into a discussion of the book's philosophies and my own, I must say one thing: this is a great fantasy series. Whether or not you care to delve into its underpinnings, it is a series worth reading simply for that pure joy of reading superbly crafted fantasy. So the rest of this post is going to be extremely opinionated and serious, but I cannot emphasize enough how much fun these books are if you just want to read a damn good story.
The books are too complicated to craft a thorough summary. So I will just focus on the pertinent "religious" bits. The ultimate battle that everyone is heading into in this trilogy, is one with God, or as the people in Lyra's world refer to him, the Authority. The forces of the Rebellion against the Authority have discovered that he is not the creator of all things. Rather, he was the first angel that was ever created. Who or what created him is not known, I suppose it could be the Big Bang or something equally out of the scope of this particular discussion. Anyway, when the rest of the angels came into being, the Authority tricked them into believing that he had created them all, and thereby established the Kingdom of Heaven that proceeded to rule over all of the worlds that existed in the universe. Priests were his "agents" doing his bidding, making sure that humans and other creatures were kept in line, and he banished any angels who dared to rebel against him. Even the concept of Heaven and Hell is a lie and the Authority has forced all dead spirits to spend eternity in an Underworld (very similar to Hades) where they are tormented by harpies and never get to see the outside world again. Lyra and Will journey to this Underworld and by cutting an opening into another world, they free these spirits, who just dissolve into the air and joyfully become a part of the Nature all around them.
I suppose the passage that best explains the entire philosophy behind the Rebellion is the following:
"She said that all the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. She and the rebel angels, the followers of wisdom, have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed."This passage strikes me as a searing indictment of religion, at least when practiced by extremists. And while my naive 14-year old self didn't understand it, I certainly do now. In its worst displays, religion can bring about a complacent ignorance, a refusal to question and probe and accept differences. For example, a 2010 Gallup poll revealed that only 40% of Americans believe in evolution. Children who live in states where they have to be taught creationism in Biology class are being forced to participate in a religion that they may not even subscribe to. Worse than that, their careers as future scientists are going to be seriously hampered if they cannot divorce themselves from their creationist teachings and acknowledge years of scientific research. If that is not evidence of the "struggle between wisdom and stupidity," I don't know what is.
Many religious groups vehemently opposed this trilogy and its "heretic" messages. They don't want their children to read it - after all, it involves the death of God at one point. There's a lot more in the books about original sin, Adam and Eve, and so on, but you can discover that for yourself if you choose to read the series. One part that struck a chord with me was when a priest sets out to kill Lyra - he has received "Preemptive Absolution," i.e. he has performed sufficient penance to cover the sin of the murder he will eventually commit. This reminded me somewhat of the hoopla surrounding the Pope's visit to Spain earlier this year when he granted priests the right for one week to grant absolution to any woman who had had an abortion. For one week there were women desperate enough to travel to Spain and be absolved of their supposedly unforgivable sin that got them excommunicated from the Church in the first place. While people may argue that you need religion to establish morality, morality is really what established religion in the first place. Some actions are always right or always wrong (e.g. help others, but don't kill them), and such values became the basic tenets of every religion. However, humans are never satisfied with the basics and added tenets and rules regarding other actions that were not so clear-cut, as well as including loopholes (like absolution) for when they broke the rules. While morality and social mores can be fluid, religion usually is not - after all, the Ten Commandments were carved in stone, that's pretty final. This rigidity is why people still find their rights and freedoms infringed upon in this day and age as they are being subjected to the moral code of a bygone era. The supposed need for religion to impose moral order is an antiquated notion, and its power to actually impede scientific, political, and basic human progress is an ever present concern.
Ultimately the His Dark Materials trilogy has a positive message. Lyra and Will are tasked to build their own version of the Kingdom of Heaven in which they urge all human beings to make the most of their time in the world and embrace their lives, because when they die, they will be expected to tell stories of a well-lived life to the harpies and obtain their freedom from the Underworld. If living a good life is the kind of message that you get from your brand of religion, then good for you. But if being religious means being small-minded, proselytizing, and hurting others because they don't believe the same things that you do, you are not really getting the message.
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