Philip
Pullman is an author of the renowned His Dark Materials Trilogy. The series
begins with the Northern Lights (1995)
followed by The subtle knife (1997),
and finally The Amber Spyglass
(2000). Pullman is expected to release the first of a follow-up trilogy from His Dark Materials going as The Book of Dust. The book is
anticipated to be published on the 19th of October 2017 going by the name La Belle Sauvage (Thornes, Robin).
The
author who has time after time been able to combine various elements into his
novels attracting attention from all sorts of people. Among the components,
Pullman puts together include wizardry, where he adds the medieval assumption
of witches and wizards owning “familiars.†Familiars are animal-like creatures
which can be able to undertake duties like carrying messages from its owner the
anywhere they are directed. Another element that Pullman includes is the use of
human in the flesh, a soul that is represented by a daemon. In this case, he
uses creatures that shift from one animal to another when one is a child and
finally settles to one animal that correctly represents the personality of an
individual when one gets to adolescences and lasts him or her the rest of
his/her life (Pullman, The Golden Compass, The
Decanter of Tokay). There is also the third representation of an individual as
a ghost which may be understood as the spirit and only appears after one has
died. In a way, one can interpret this as it is recognized in Christianity as
an individual having the body, soul, and spirit after death. The only
difference is that, in Pullman’s fiction, these human being and the daemon
exist as two beings that can even communicate, agree or disagree on issues. The
other difference is that the spirit comes to life when one dies and one can
converse with it like in the case of Lyra and Roger (Pullman,
The Golden Compass, Lyra's Jordan). The existence of these
three elements is present in the Catholic theology which points out that a
human being has three forms, the body, soul, and spirit linked together but
distinct from each other.
Pullman’s
books have been classified as fiction and fantasy. However, there is more
meaning to them than the surface meaning derived. We see this when Pullman
introduces Dust in the picture. We first hear of dust when Lyra with her daemon
are hiding in Lord Asriel’s closet at the point where he gives a lecture on the
subject. Lyra gets curious on why people are so much interested in the matter.
Later on, the story when Asriel kills Lyra’s friend Roger and moves to an
alternate world, her explains into details what Dust is to Lyra who follows him
to this world. Asriel explains that Dust makes her alethiometer (truth
meter/golden compass) work. The Dust assembled around adults and not around
children because children are innocent. He explains to her about the story of
Adam and Eve saying that Dust is another name for original sin or the knowledge
of oneself that was first experienced by Adam and Eve (Pullman,
The Golden Compass, Lord Asriel's Welcome).
It is
clear that Mrs. Coulter Lyra’s mother as we later come to learn is an evil
woman who does scientific experiments on young children by trying to separate
them from their Daemons which kills the children. In her understanding, by
severing the children from the daemons, she would be saving the children from
the original sin. When Asriel separates Roger from his daemon, and the portal
to a new world opens, Mrs. Coulter appears, and Asriel asks her to come along.
Lord Asriel’s goal is to find the source of the Dust and obliterate it. Asriel
was hoping that because their degree of hatred for the Dust is similar, she
would come but she declined the offer. In Lyra’s understanding, her parents
(Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel) were evil, and they both hated the dust which could
only mean that dust was not evil but instead a good thing (Pullman, The Golden
Compass, Bridge to the Stars). Pullman’s
association of the narrative on Adam and Eve, and the original sin is a clear
indication of where the story derives various elements from, and the inclusion
of the dust is not by any chance accidental. Pullman apparently wanted to
include God in the narrative as he is described in the bible hence
intentionally using dust to represent Him.
In a
quote from Amber Spyglass, “The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh,
El, 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, and Dust
is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself.â€
(Pullman, The Amber Spyglass, Balthamos and Baruch), Pullman through a
character by the name Balthamos, who is a rebel angel states that God is the
same as the Dust because it is through matter that Dust is formed. The
statement also presents how Pullman sees God as just matter that came together
to form the dust that formed first. It is in no doubt that this is a clear
illustration of Pullman’s stand as an atheist. Balthamos words limit the
freedom of a reader even to consider that the use of dust to represent God was
unintentional.
In the
same book when Asriel sets out to destroy the dust Ogunwe says, “I am a king,
but it’s my proudest task to join Lord Asriel in setting up a world where there
are no kingdoms at all. No kings, no bishops, no priests. The Kingdom of Heaven
has been known by that name since the Authority first set himself above the
rest of the angels. And we want no part of it. This world is different. We intend
to be free citizens of the Republic of Heaven†(Pullman, The Amber Spyglass,
Midnight). Ogunwe is an ally of Asriel. God rules heaven according to the
scriptures, and therefore dust which rules over the republic of heaven only
means destroying God who rules over the heaven we know.
Pullman’s
work has always been compared to that of Tolkien who also has a deep conviction
of his own work. The difference between the two is the fact that Pullman talks
of various worlds and even religion. Tolkien does not talk about this but
instead offers reality and truth embodied in his vision. Tolkien is a devout
Catholic while as Pullman is a proclaimed Church of England atheist. Their
difference goes beyond ideologies.
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