Title: His Dark Materials (trilogy)
Author: Pullman, Philip
Published by: Scholastic UK Ltd
Year: 2007; 2007; 2001
First published: Scholastic UK Ltd, 1995; 1997; 2000
Date reviewed: 03.09
ISBN: 978 0439 95178 4
978 0439 94467 0
978 0439 99358 6

His Dark Materials is a trilogy consisting of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.

You’ll probably find these three books in the children’s section of your local library, but that doesn’t mean adults won’t enjoy reading them too. Pullman draws on Milton, Blake, the Old Testament and folk traditions which he mixes with modern scientific concepts of multiple universes, dark matter, and hidden dimensions. With these he weaves an epic fantasy involving two children on the verge of adolescence. The worlds through which their journey takes them contain armoured polar bears, witches, angels, spectres and a variety of good and bad humans. If you find this kind of thing annoying these books probably won’t convert you to the fantasy genre, but if you can suspend rational belief enough to go along with the story I don’t think you’ll fail to be drawn into its world(s).

An obvious comparison is with Tolkien, but there is one major difference. Despite what some critics have read into The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien himself always denied it was a political work. Pullman, though, has a strong anti-religious message to put across which although targeted directly at the Christian church would also have in its sights the other Abrahamic religions and any others where doctrine and dogma claim precedence over rational enquiry, and especially so where this precedence is exerted through a centralised power structure. His manifesto can be summed up in these two quotes from the third book:

All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity… The followers of wisdom have always tried to open minds, the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed… And for most of that time, wisdom has had to work in secret, whispering her words, moving like a spy through the humble places of the world while the courts and palaces are occupied by her enemies. (p506)

… [You should] help everyone else… to learn and understand about themselves and each other and the way everything works, and by showing them how to be kind instead of cruel, and patient instead of hasty, and cheerful instead of surly, and above all how to keep their minds open and free and curious. (p520)

It would not be difficult to pick holes in the work, especially the final book where the story twists and jumps to work its way to the final conclusion. I think most readers, though, will be carried along by the pace and excitement and not worry too much about how the author overcomes a few problems with his plot. It is after all a cracking good tale!

Fittingly, the final book does not have a happy-ever-after ending. I don’t want to give a spoiler so I’ll limit my comments to saying that although the outcome is not as the main characters would have ideally hoped it is nonetheless positive and optimistic. Younger readers may not be able to hold back some tears at times and even adults might find their eyes a little moist, but the story has a strong internal logic and so what must be must be.

Oh, and you must read the books in order!