Short answer: Not along the narrow path.
For those interested in a little more pontification, read on…
‘The Golden Compass’ opens in the UK at the end of the week, to wide interest and some acclaim. Starring among others Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green and Ian MacKellan, it is set to be a Christmas blockbuster. Based on ‘Northern Lights’ by Phillip Pullman it sets out a fantastical parallel zone in which a young girl takes on and saves the world.
The original book is an imaginative, creative and well-written adventure, which has depth and is thought provoking. As a text it easily out strips the Harry Potter books in terms of its complexity and the references upon which it draws. Pullman is clearly a very capable and intelligent writer, able to weave together many threads of plot and ideas into an easily readable and fascinating story.
I like the books, as maybe you have guessed, but not a lot. I would say that there is a lot to recommend them (see above) and that as texts worthy of study at ‘A’ or even degree level they offer a rich mine of discussion. However I would qualify this by saying that I find that there is a dark soul at the heart of The Dark Materials trilogy. I find that the conclusion to the books brings no hope, just a fantasy that humanity can build something powerful on its own. Yes, there are pockets of people who are capable of that when working together (I think that the Tower of Babel shows this). However society is full of the self-serving and narcissistic - myself included- and I see no hope in a world of which this is a part. This is particularly true of the fantasy world of the books, where I found very few of the characters sympathetic. A republic of heaven full of the arrogance and selfishness they show sounds more like an abyss to me. In addition I find the idea of being dust after death no comfort. I do not want to be what is dumped on a landfill or messed up with the eternal being of others, I want to be me, and am happy to be immortalised as just that.
It is said that Pullman wrote Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass as a response to the Narnia Chronicles, in order to offer an atheistic fable for children. In the first case I would say that they do not represent a fable so much as a morality tale. There is something very didactic about the writing style of the texts which allows for no views of any worth, and therefore no discussion of the opinions they contain, other than the narrator’s own. Characters who hold different view points are necessarily evil; the church is evil, Mrs Coulter is evil - at the end I felt I had spent 3 rounds being pummelled by Pullman in order to accept his beliefs as true, and there is an arrogance in that. In this sense it is a children’s story, in that it does not give the reader space to think for themselves. In the second case though, it is clearly not a book written for children. Many of the references the book draws on (the enlightenment, Judao-Christian beliefs, etc) would be lost on your average 12 year old. In addition, a lot of the content of the books portray images that are violent and cause fear or upset, thus making them unsuitable for younger readers. As such I would question Pullman’s motives in writing these books. Maybe he sees Narnia books as a violent and aggressive brainwashing of children (I am sure there is some scope for these views), and if so his books represent an equal an opposite reaction to Narnia. Otherwise he has overstepped his mark - in short he has missed his own point - as whereas the Narnia Chronicles are suitable for junior age readers, I would be unwilling to give the Dark Materials trilogy to anyone under KS4 age.
In answer to my own question then, the compass not so much points away from the God of the Bible, but drags the readers there whether that is where they choose to be or not. There is no redemption in the books, just rebuilding using the same old materials.
As such, be wise. Read the books yourself, disagree with me if you wish, but decide what you make of them before you give them to a child to decipher. And be prepared to discuss and explain the information therein.
One final, unmissable, irony which Pullman above all others must be aware of: he is The Authority in his own created world. Without a god his world ceases to exist. And the dark soul at the dark heart is his too.
Posted in Life in general
