Philip Pullman, Northern Lights PDF

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9 Philip Pullman, Northern Lights (1995) Introduction Heather Montgomery Northern Lights is the first novel of Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials. First published in 1995 in the UK and in 1996 in North America, where it was retitled The Golden Compass, it was followed by The Subtle Knife in 1997 and in 2000 by The Amber Spyglass. Northern Lights has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, and won numerous awards. In 2007 it was voted by the public as the best children’s book of the last 70 years in the ‘Carnegie of Carnegies’ (although Pullman himself felt that the accolade should have gone to Tom’s Midnight Garden). It tells the story of 12-year-old Lyra Belacqua and her epic journey north to find her missing friend Roger, and her imprisoned father, Lord Asriel. Enjoyed by adults and children alike, it is sometimes classified as a crossover novel, although its mixture of fantasy and realism, science and theology, and its use of intertexts defies easy categorisation. There has been a highly acclaimed stage adaptation of His Dark Materials, which premiered at the National Theatre in 2003, and a less successful film version which appeared in 2006.

Origins and composition Pullman wrote his first book, entitled The Haunted Storm, in 1972. By the time Northern Lights came out he was a well-established writer for both adults and children, most famous for his Sally Lockhart quartet which begins with The Ruby in the Smoke (1985). Pullman draws his inspiration from a number of sources, most notably William Blake and John Milton, from whose poem Paradise Lost he takes the title of his trilogy. Pullman has described how Northern Lights and his other writings come into being, and the way that these other authors influence and inspire him: ‘Books and stories don’t just emerge from nothing in a sort of mental Big Bang. They grow more like plants, from a seed that’s nourished by a rich and fertile soil. All my books have come out of the background of my own reading and from the things I’ve seen, or heard, or done, or thought about’ (Pullman, n.d., a).

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Reception/critical terrain A large body of critical literature has developed around Pullman’s work and Northern Lights has been examined in terms of its theology, its intertextuality, and whether or not it can best be seen as fantasy or psychological realism. It is distinctive in that Pullman has himself engaged in lively dialogue with the critics. Pullman himself has claimed that he does not write fantasy and deals only with ‘real’ human characters. He has said: ‘If I write fantasy, it’s only because by using the mechanisms of fantasy I can say something a little more vividly about, for example, the business of growing up’ (Rustin and Rustin, 2003: 93). Taking his books as a reflection of psychological reality, Margaret and Michael Rustin have read Northern Lights as an examination of domestic family relationships and the psychic interplay between parents and children. They have analysed it in terms of what it says about fundamental questions of belonging, parent–child relationships, personality formation and Freudian understandings of sexuality. They point out how deeply damaged and dysfunctional Lyra’s family is and analyse the book as her search for better and more loving adult role models, be they Iorek the bear, Lee Scoresby, Serafina Pekkala or the dons at Jordan College, Oxford: The ambivalence of parental adults towards growing children is a primary theme of Northern Lights. Lyra’s parents demonstrate an interest in her which is deeply damaged by its narcissist elements: she exists in their minds very little as a person in her own right, but more as a creature serving their needs of one sort or another. The college, by contrast, has provided love and care determined in a rough and ready way by Lyra’s needs, a setting in which she can grow up to be herself. Rustin and Rustin, 2003: 94–5

Pullman has come in for criticism from those who view his depictions of adult/child roles and relationships negatively. Kristine Moruzi, for instance, has claimed that ‘Pullman fails to offer any genuinely new ideas of the world with respect to adult–child relationships and the roles that children play in society’ (2005: 55–6). She sees Pullman’s vision as essentially conservative, supporting a status quo in which children must bow to adult authority and where their role is to obey and follow destiny rather than change it: ‘Pullman’s insistence on the subordination of children becomes … problematic because he fails to understand the reality of life for his child audience and resists a genuine re-conceptualization of contemporary society’ (2005: 67). Others have been critical of the ways in

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which His Dark Materials trilogy deals with theological questions of creation and eschatology, faith and the role of God in human’s lives, objecting to the portrayal of God in The Amber Spyglass as senile, exhausted and dying. Pullman’s treatment of organised religion has been particularly controversial and he has accordingly been called ‘the most dangerous author in Britain’ (Hitchens, 2003), while the Catholic Church has condemned Pullman’s writings as anti-Christian and accused him of promoting a vision of the world which leaves no room for hope. In this respect, he has been accused of being overtly didactic, although he denies this charge, claiming: ‘I’m not in the message business; I’m in the “Once upon a time” business’ (Pullman, n.d., b). His denial of an explicit ideological and moral agenda is disingenuous, however. Not only, as Peter Hunt argues, is it ‘impossible for a children’s book (especially one being read by a child) not to be educational or influential in some way; it cannot help but reflect an ideology and, by extension, didacticism’ (1994: 3), but Pullman himself has elsewhere been happy to state his position explicitly: The trouble is that all too often in human history, churches and priesthoods have set themselves up to rule people’s lives in the name of some invisible god (and they’re all invisible, because they don’t exist) – and done terrible damage. In the name of their god, they have burned, hanged, tortured, maimed, robbed, violated, and enslaved millions of their fellow-creatures, and done so with the happy conviction that they were doing the will of God, and they would go to Heaven for it. That is the religion I hate, and I’m happy to be known as its enemy. Pullman, n.d., a.

Pullman has deliberately set himself up against writers such as C.S. Lewis, whose Christian allegories, The Chronicles of Narnia, he despises. He has described Lewis’s books as ‘rather hateful propaganda for prigs and bullies’, going on to describe them as ‘profoundly racist’: ‘they are misogynistic, he hates women and girls, he thinks they are no good at all, they are weak, they are useless, they are stupid. In fact he hates life basically, because at the end of them the greatest reward these children have is to be taken away… and killed in a railway accident’ (Pullman, 2002). For all his anti-Christian vehemence, however, there are others who see him as less atheistic than he might wish to appear: Indifference is certainly a far greater enemy to Christianity than atheism. The atheist still cares about God, even if he wants him dead. There is a kind of piety in atheism. It is this piety that keeps soaking through into the fabric of Philip Pullman’s fiction. Even in his rejection of religion, in his hatred of the church and

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his contempt for God, Pullman is still asking theological questions and finding comfort in theological answers. Rayment-Pickard, 2004: 88

The essays The three essays selected here from an increasingly crowded field deal with different aspects of Pullman’s work and are representative in their concerns of the themes that have received most critical attention. AnneMarie Bird takes one of Pullman’s key concepts, Dust, and traces its antecedents in both Milton and Blake before looking at how Pullman rejects absolute dichotomies between good and evil, spirit and body. Naomi Wood discusses the links between Pullman and C.S. Lewis. Finally, Clare Squires looks at one of the central aspects of Pullman’s work, his use of intertextuality and the influences of other authors. Intertextuality is a central concern in all of these essays and the ways in which Pullman uses other works to give his books a particular authenticity and to situate them in a particular tradition are important. By drawing heavily on Milton and Blake, Pullman situates himself as part of a long tradition of religious dissent, which is thrown into sharper relief by comparison with the conservatism and religious orthodoxy of C.S. Lewis. In this regard all three essays deal with the same issues of sources and Pullman’s role in the wider canon. They move away from any simplistic understanding of the ‘meanings’ or ‘messages’ of Northern Lights, concentrating instead on the book as a literary creation.

References Hitchens, P. 2003. ‘Is This the Most Dangerous Author in Britain?’ The Mail on Sunday, 25 June. Hunt, P. 1994. An Introduction to Children’s Literature. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Moruzi, K. 2005. ‘Missed Opportunities: The Subordination of Children in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials’, Children’s Literature in Education, 36, 55–68. Pullman, P. n.d. a. About the Worlds. http://www.philip-pullman.com/ about_the_worlds.asp, accessed 27 November 2008. Pullman, P. n.d. b. About the Books. http://www.philip-pullman.com/ about_the_worlds.asp, accessed 27 November 2008. Pullman, P. 2002. ‘Interview with Philip Pullman,’ recorded at The Readers’ and Writers’ Roadshow, Hay-on-Wye, broadcast on Radio 4, 11 July. Rayment-Pickard, H. 2004. The Devil’s Account: Philip Pullman and Christianity. London, Darton, Longman & Todd.

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Rustin, M. and Rustin, M. 2003. ‘Where is Home? An Essay on Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights (Volume 1 of His Dark Materials)’, Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 29, 93–105.

Further reading Hunt, P. and Lenz, M. 2001. Alternative Worlds in Fantasy Fiction. London, Continuum. Lenz, M. and Scott, C. 2005. His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on Philip Pullman’s Trilogy. Detroit, Wayne State University Press. Squires, C. 2006. Philip Pullman, Master Storyteller: A Guide to the Worlds of His Dark Materials. London, Continuum. Tucker, N. 2007. Darkness Visible: Inside the World of Philip Pullman. London, Wizard.

Dust as Metaphor in Philip Pullman Anne-Marie Bird Few myths have had such an immensely powerful and prevailing influence on the Western imagination, or have generated quite so many retellings, as the Judeo-Christian myth of the Fall. One reason for its endurance lies in the fact that it provides a series of answers to the most basic and profound questions such as how the universe was made, how humanity began, and why suffering and death entered the world. Another reason for its pervasive influence is that like other myths (and especially cosmogonic myths), it is built on a system of classification – the notion that creation is a matter of naming, a matter of making distinctions, and of articulating opposites – in an attempt to organise or make sense of the universe. Indeed, the Genesis narrative opens with the concept of separation: God ‘divided the light from the darkness,’ the heaven from the earth and the day from the night. This idea of division continues in chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis as humanity’s transgression of God’s law leads to further, more ideologically loaded binary opposites, namely, innocenceexperience, good-evil and spirit-matter. Finding elements of their inspiration in the biblical story of the Fall and John Milton’s elaboration of this narrative in Paradise Lost, Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy (Northern Lights – or, in North America, The Golden Compass – The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass)1 makes use of this myth on several levels. On a simplistic level,

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the books can be read as straightforward adventure stories in that they involve difficult journeys in which the protagonists must confront numerous challenges in the search for some object, place, or person. On a deeper level, the texts are an exploration of the fundamental themes of the Fall: initiation and the passage from innocence to experience, the nature of good and evil, the consequences of knowledge, and the notion of free will or individual responsibility. From this perspective, the books are representative of the adolescent ‘rites of passage’ narrative in which the most important journey is not an external event but an inner one concerning the child’s journey toward adulthood. However, if we investigate Pullman’s treatment of these themes, it becomes apparent that, like the God of Genesis, human beings are also concerned with the idea of division or separation. Drawing on motifs found within Gnostic mythology and the poetry of William Blake – particularly Blake’s concept of ‘Contraries’ – Pullman attempts to synthesise the opposing principles that lie at the core of the myth while leaving the innocence-experience dichotomy firmly in place. The effect of this is to transpose what is, in traditional Christian readings, a paradigm of disobedience and divine punishment into a scheme of self-development. The key to this ontological scheme is ‘Dust,’ a conventional metaphor for human physicality inspired by God’s judgment on humanity: ‘for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’ (Genesis, 3:19). Underpinning the concept of Dust is Milton’s metaphor for the mass of unformed primal matter left over from the construction of the universe; in other words, the ‘dark materials’ of Paradise Lost (II, 1.916). In Pullman’s narrative, however, Dust contains much more than the beginning and end of humanity’s physical existence or the origins of the universe.

Organising Milton’s dark materials: dust as a means of classification The very term, Dust, is highly ambiguous. Its indistinctness lies in its intrinsic amorphousness. Consequently, it is an extremely adaptable concept, offering an almost infinite number of possibilities or meanings. To the God of Genesis, Dust contains mankind’s origins and is literally the substance that marks his demise. Pullman, however, uses the word in order to connect the plethora of seemingly incompatible elements that make up the universe. The desire to connect everything with everything else manifests itself on every level of the texts. For example, the setting for the narrative – its ‘uncountable billions of parallel worlds’ (NL, p. 374), none hierarchically superior, but ‘interpenetrating with this one’ (NL, p. 187) –

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epitomises the attempt to link together, and therefore equalises everything in its most simplistic form. Striving to unite all things is more complex, however, when it is attempted through one metaphor in which all concepts, physical and metaphysical, apparently exist in parallel. In the first book, Dust is described as ‘a new kind of elementary particle’ (NL, p. 368), yet it functions as a metaphor for ‘original sin’ (NL, p. 369) and is experienced by Lyra as ‘dark intentions, like the forms of thoughts not yet born’ (p. 389). In the second text, Dust operates in both a literal and a metaphorical sense. Described by the particle physicists in a twentieth century research laboratory as ‘dark matter’ (SK, p. 90), Dust appears to correspond to the scientific phenomenon known as cosmic dust: the small particles of matter that are distributed throughout space and which, according to current theories of cosmology, make up at least ninety percent of the mass of the universe. In short, Dust is the actual physical ‘stuff’ that holds the universe together. There is an obvious correspondence here between Dust as ‘dark matter’ and the ‘dark materials’ of Milton’s Paradise Lost (which Pullman quotes in the epigraph to Northern Lights): … Into this wild abyss, The womb of nature and perhaps her grave, Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mixed Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless the almighty maker them ordain His dark materials to create more worlds, Into this wild abyss the wary fiend Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while, Pondering his voyage … II, ll. 910–19

In Milton’s text, the idea that God can ‘create more worlds’ by ordering or rearranging the primal matter left over from the creation is clearly not meant to be interpreted in a literal or scientifically accurate sense. What it does suggest is that the dark materials are brimming with almost limitless potential that merely awaits the Maker’s transmutation. Moreover, in Milton’s work the metaphor of dark materials is extended with the suggestion that the material that comprises the bulk of the universe’s mass is made up of sentient particles in a state of rebellion. This is where Milton’s metaphor ends. In the second book of Pullman’s trilogy, the rebellious atoms of Paradise Lost are organised and arranged further,

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evolving into a system of classification that involves the entire spectrum ranging from pure matter to pure spirit – ‘Dust,’ ‘dark matter,’ ‘Shadows,’ ‘shadow-particles,’ ‘particles of consciousness’ (pp. 90–2) and ‘rebel angels’ (p. 260) – ultimately becoming the ‘inheritance’ of all human beings in the final book (p. 497). The slippage between one concept and another, from one end of the spectrum to the other, and between the metaphorical and the literal, transforms Dust from the familiar closed configuration bequeathed to humanity by God into an open structure. Indeed, by developing Milton’s ‘dark materials’ into an extremely composite metaphor, Pullman is suggesting that every elementary particle of Dust contains the entire universe (which is, in turn, akin to the Blakean metaphor, ‘To see a World in a Grain of Sand’). Thus, having established what Dust includes – the numerous terms involved – we must turn our attention to how it functions in the trilogy.

Mind–body duality: toward an integration Religious dualism – the doctrine that the world comprises two basic, diametrically opposed principles – is generally associated with Gnosticism. For example, Gnostic myth and metaphor centre around the dualities of light and dark, spirit and matter, and good and evil: the fundamental belief being that the spirit is ‘good’ and matter is ‘evil.’ However, the distinction between good and evil, or spirit and matter, is not only a distinguishing Gnostic characteristic, but is just as notably a feature of traditional Christianity in which the irreconcilable nature of the opposites arises from their moral emphasis. There is no such simple theological dichotomy in Pullman’s texts. Rather, his work strives to convince the reader of the interconnectedness of these particular conceptual opposites. The integration of the spiritual and the material is demonstrated most effectively by Pullman’s innovative depiction of the human soul. However, before specifically exploring this, it will be useful to attempt to define the soul. According to conventional Cartesian philosophy, the soul is the immaterial ‘I’ that confers individuality and is often considered to be synonymous with the mind. In mainstream Christian theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the human that partakes of divinity. Pullman’s interpretation of the human soul includes all but one of these definitions and brings us to what is perhaps the most striking characteristic of the world of Northern Lights.

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In this world, every human has a ‘dæmon’ which is both visible and audible – a kind of ‘familiar’ in animal form, usually of the opposite sex to its human counterpart (the physical realisation of the Jungian idea that we have an anima, or animus which is part of our soul). However, the significance of the external soul is that it explicitly foregrounds the notion of dualism – the belief that the human bein...