Philip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy...

What's the story line?

Sort of hard to say because it's pretty convoluted and complex. His Dark Materials is a fantasy trilogy supposedly for kids but seems to appeal to (or greatly anger) adults. (I've frequently heard it described as the "anti-Harry Potter," though it's perfectly possible to enjoy both series, as I can attest to!) It's set in a world that is kind of like ours but with obvious differences and involves things like talking bears, mysteriously disappearing children, spirit animals, etc. What is most controversial is the depiction of the "Church." The book doesn't really specifiy denominations, but the Church being portrayed is pretty clearly a generically Christian kind. Two of the main characters are a pair of homosexual angels, and the last book culminates in a war against God. On the whole, the trilogy is beautifully written and densely complex, but also alarmingly provocative if you're sensitive to those sorts of things.

Oooooohhhh, that sounds interesting!

Out of curiosity, I checked out some of the angrier reviews of the first book in this series, The Northern Lights (published as The Golden Compass in the United States), on Amazon.com. Here's a sampling:

Yes it is provocative and very critical of institutionalized and theistic religion. I find that it goes too far in certain aspects but it is a well written fantasy trilogy. I've never really been a fan of revisionistic fantasy fiction (my jargon for it), but it is a well written trilogy and worth checking out if you are into angels, armoured bears, multiverses, dark matter, or adventure.

You know it would be interesting if this were to come out the same time that Narnia came out.

Shapeless, thanks for posting those reviews from Amazon, very interesting to see some reactions.

I'm feeling a lot of trepidation about the movies, actually. I love the books so much, I don't want them to mess it up, and I just don't know how they could do a satisfying adaptation-- what is so amazing about the books is the density of the world Pullman creates, and they just won't be able to capture that in movies. I don't know if I'll even want to see them!

I agree, the books sometimes feel a little polemical, which distracts from the story. But on the whole, they're a great read... Pullman's world is so richly populated.

Cyphercat, I think I'm going to approach the movies the same way I approached the Harry Potter movies: mostly out of curiosity and as an excuse to re-immerse myself in these books, rather than out of any expectations that the films will live up to the books! The fun factor shouldn't be overlooked when it comes to children's fantasy.

On a related note, I also just found out that Disney is taking a stab at Bridge to Terabithia. This I'm a little more wary about seeing, if only because no one wants to see a grown man crying in public.

Yep I agree with you guys, great read. It's a little hard to see it (a film) going any other way than a Chronicles of Narnia kind of adaption, which I enjoyed, but in comparison to a certain fantasy trilogy adapted to the big screen which will go unnamed, well you get the picture...

I read about this ages back actually, the armoured bears in that wonderfully described icy environment sounded great to me.

EDIT: By the way, in terms of comparisons with Harry Potter (I've enjoyed what I've read of this very much as well), I was much more moved by Lyra's relationship with Will (two central, young characters) than with anything I've read in Harry Potter. Maybe that's just me though.

I generally agree, though it still makes me chuckle a bit when, at the very end of the trilogy, Will says of Lyra: "I love her more than anyone has ever been loved." It's touching, especially given the context of the closing scenes, but that's a rather extravagant claim for an adolescent boy to make of a barely adolescent girl! Harry Potter's amorous interests are more superficial but also, in my opinion, written with more nuanced attention to the way amorous adventures work when you're fifteen years old.

Good quote, that brings me right back. I agree with you though to be fair. Going on memory I always felt a sense of the unspoken words in the DM trilogy, particularly between those two, were the more compelling. I'm not talking about written thoughts, rather, just the lack of what wasn't said between them. That's all based on their young ages of course. I liked the plot involving Will and his father very much too actually.

You're probably right about the more nuanced attention paid by Rowling to those kinds of relationships as well, but I only tend to find youngish children compelling in any kind of roles under very specific circumstance, the DM trilogy seemed to hit this nail more squarely on the head for me, maybe because the surroundings and plot they were thrown into required them to be more adult-like, reading Harry Potter, in the back of my mind I always get this feeling that the grown-ups are only a second away. I guess it's the school setting.

I actually read the 1st Harry Potter book a little while before it became big and finished the 1st 3-4 before I ever discovered 'His Dark Materials'. I know sometimes the order things are discovered can have an impact on preference, not sure in this case though.

Laura and Will's relationship is great, but that ending... I don't know, it seems very unusual, especially when they kiss. I think what I don't like about that event in particular is how Pullman writes it with his agenda against the genesis story. IMO it seems exaggerated and just awkward.

About the Harry Potter books, I think there isn't any interesting romantic relationship except for Hermione and Ron, at first anyways. By the sixth book it's just ridiculous how they argue so much. I hope they work it out, for everyone's sake.

wow, i read those books when i was younger, and all the provocative stuff went right over my head. i just loved them for their writing. philip pullman's writing is amazing, but now when i think back to them, read blurbs about these books, i can't believe how wierd they actually were....

wow. i don't think i'll be seeing the movie

The trilogy was ostensibly based on Milton's "Paradise Lost" and as such caused a flurry of criticisms from the extablished church. But cynically I've always regarded it as a commercial rejoinder to the Lord of the Rings bandwagon with an eye on its movie rights. I have little doubt that the movie will completely miss the psychological nuances of the written word and is likely to give a generation of book-shy children a dumbed-down parody of the story line.

I loved the ending. Cried my eyes out.

Did anyone watch the Teaser Trailer?.

I just checked out the teaser... looks ambitious!

Wow I missed this completely, thanks for brining it to my attention, looks very interesting to say the least. I think Northern Lights is a better name though, I wonder what the thinking was behind the name change for the American version of the book?

I thought I'd revisit this thread now that interest in (and controversy over) these books has been piqued by the release of the movie. I haven't seen the film yet; it seems to be getting lukewarm reviews.

Anyway, here's one recent take on books courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

His Dark Material
The unsubtle atheism of Philip Pullman's books.
LESLIE BAYNES

In the aftermath of the clerical sex-abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church, Americans who know of the church largely through major media outlets might be forgiven for perceiving it as populated by men who are hell-bent on the destruction of children's souls. If they read Philip Pullman's trilogy for children, "His Dark Materials," their perception might be strengthened. A movie based on the first book in that series, "The Golden Compass," appeared in theaters last week, and plans for the other ones are in the works.

Although the series is a fantasy set in multiple worlds, there is no doubt that Mr. Pullman, a self-described atheist, targets Christianity--and particularly a rather thinly disguised Catholic Church--in these children's books. While the movie has excised some of the antireligious themes of the first book, the name of the most evil institution in its narrative universe remains "the Magisterium." Some moviegoers won't recognize this term, but the Magisterium is the teaching authority of the church, led by the pope. In the movie, one of the leaders in the Magisterium, the beautiful but vicious Mrs. Coulter, is played by Nicole Kidman.

Controversy began to build with the publication of the three books in 1996, 1997 and 2000. But it has taken the release of a major motion picture to bring the dispute to the attention of a wider audience. "Atheism for kids" is how the Catholic League describes the books. Mr. Pullman in turn calls his detractors "nitwits." Then comes the controversy about the controversy. Sniffs Laura Miller in the Los Angeles Times: "You have to wonder how much actual reading goes on in the sort of household that welcomes e-mails denouncing 'The Golden Compass,' anyway.

* * * *

So is the ferment about "His Dark Materials" just Harry Potter vs. Fundamentalists redux, a clash that generates heat but no light? Probably not.

First of all, "His Dark Materials," unlike the Harry Potter series, is real literature and, as such, deserves serious attention. Mr. Pullman, a graduate of Oxford University with a degree in English, knows his stuff. The books are loaded with allusions to Greek mythology and philosophy, Milton, Blake and the Bible, with images ranging from the obvious (the Garden of Eden) to the obscure (the bene elim, or angelic Watchers mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4). These allusions, unlike the throwaway Latinisms of Hogwarts' spells, drive the plot, characters and themes of Mr. Pullman's series. Indeed, a child who investigates them would begin to gain the rudiments of a classical education.

Moreover, again in contrast to J.K. Rowling's books (which were criticized by some Christians for their use of magic and witchcraft), Mr. Pullman's series is bluntly anti-Christian. In the third book, "The Amber Spyglass," a former nun tells the two child protagonists, Lyra and Will, that "the Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all." The church and its members do nothing but evil.

The main problem with "His Dark Materials," however, is not the atheism per se but rather its mindless dogmatism. There is no such thing as an open-minded Christian in the series. Take this quote from "The Amber Spyglass": "I met an angel. . . . 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." To be fair, Mr. Pullman himself noted in a 2000 interview that this one-sided portrayal is "an artistic flaw," but there it is nonetheless.

The polemic against religion starts quietly enough in the first book, which introduces Mr. Pullman's truly brilliant gift to fantasy literature, the personal daemon. A daemon is not a demon but more like Socrates' daimon, a sort of guardian spirit that accompanies a person throughout his life. In "His Dark Materials," a daemon is an outward manifestation of a person's soul in animal form. Children's daemons change to match their mood or suit their purposes (say, from a moth to a wildcat), but they settle into a fixed form at puberty. This change is the crux of the entire series; that is, the series is about growing up.

There couldn't be a more time-honored general theme for children's books, but Mr. Pullman seemingly found at least part of the impetus for his work in C.S. Lewis's Narnia series. Mr. Pullman's hatred of those books--he says he doesn't mind some of Lewis's other works, especially "The Screwtape Letters"--is no secret. "One girl [in the Narnia books] was sent to hell because she was getting interested in clothes and boys," he noted in 2002. Actually, Susan was getting interested in "nylons and lipstick," arguably less important than clothes and boys; nor was she "sent to hell." Instead she, unlike her three siblings, remained alive on Earth in the last book of the series. While Susan wasn't "saved," she certainly wasn't damned. As Lewis wrote to a child concerned about Susan's fate, "perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end--in her own way." Growing up was not the problem.

In "His Dark Materials," however, the church condemns growing up, particularly sexual awakening. "That's what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling," claims a character in "The Amber Spyglass." In Mr. Pullman's world, the church by extension condemns the growth, life and freedom of the soul itself. So strongly does this church want to "save" children from autonomy and the resultant possibility of choosing sin, that it literally cuts them away from their daemons, destroying their souls.

* * * *

Mr. Pullman insists, as Dan Brown did regarding his novel "The Da Vinci Code," that he is only telling a story. Yet surely he, like his character Lyra, knows that a story is one of the most important things there is. In a climactic scene in the third book, Lyra comes to grief when she spins a fantastic tale to a mythological creature called a harpy who is guarding the underworld. " 'Liar! Liar! Liar!' " it screams, "so that Lyra and liar were one and the same thing." When Lyra tells the harpy another story, a true one, it responds quite differently. Why? "Because it was true," says the harpy. "Because it was nourishing. Because it was feeding us."

"The Golden Compass" may delight its audience's palate with wonders and even whet its appetite for literature, but whether it can nourish them remains to be seen.

Ms. Baynes is an assistant professor of New Testament at Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo.

There's nothing complex about it, unless you try to reconcile it with the 'Bless This House' cross-stitch in your living room - Pullman's idea is that wickedness/understanding ain't that bad at all like, to say get down with the sickness...

That in itself would be enough, but the ancient-Greece references, the gaucho-rooster people - the man's with it. 'The Mail On Sunday' had it right calling him Britain's most dangerous man...