University of Strathclyde

Department of
English Studies
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CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Philip Pullman: Northern Lights (1995)

1. Pullman: prolific author of diverse range of children's books - historical thrillers, graphic novels, books for younger readers, contemporary novels, plays.
1.1 Philip Pullman's Website: 'I'm not in the message business; I'm in the “Once upon a time” business.' NB Pullman's statement about religion:

The religious impulse – which includes the sense of awe and mystery we feel when we look at the universe, the urge to find a meaning and a purpose in our lives, our sense of moral kinship with other human beings – is part of being human, and I value it. I'd be a damn fool not to. But organised religion is quite another thing. 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.

2. His Dark Materials trilogy (no.3 in BBC Big Read): Northern Lights (1995) (Carnegie Medal, Guardian Fiction Award), The Subtle Knife (1997) (United Kingdom Reading Award), and The Amber Spyglass (2000) (Whitbread Book of the Year, 2001 – first time by children's book).
2.1 Dramatisation: Nicholas Wright, His Dark Materials: A Two-part Dramatisation (Nick Hern Books, 2003); The Golden Compass (2007).
2.2 Secondary literature: see link to on Pullman's webpage to 'Books about Philip's Work'.
2.3 Articles: Anne-Marie Bird, 'Without Contraries is no Progression: Dust as an all-inclusive metaphor in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials', Children's Literature in Education (2001), vol.32. no.4; Millicent Lenz, 'Phillip Pullman', in Alternative Worlds in Fantasy Fiction, ed Peter Hunt and Millicent Lenz (London: Continuum, 2001); Millicent Lenz, 'Story as a Bridge to Transformation: the Way Beyond Death in Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass', Children's Literature in Education (2003), vol.34, no.1; Hugh Rayment-Pickard, The Devil's Account: Phillip Pullman and Christianity (2004); etc
2.4 Used to be an 'Annotations of His Dark Materials' web page
2.5 Philip Pullman, 'The Republic of Heaven', Horn Book, 2001, Vol. LXXVII, no.6.

3. Epic fantasy in tradition of Tolkien and Lewis; see handout on Chronicles of Narnia for parallels between Lewis's and Pullman's texts; major difference over religion/Christianity.
3.1 See Pullman: 'The Dark Side of Narnia', Guardian, 4 (October 1998).
3.2 See Tucker, 'Pullman, C.S. Lewis and growing up', Darkness Visible, pp.161-66:

Although Pullman is on record for despising the Christian-based Narnia stories of C.S. Lewis, ... both writers create worlds separate from this one where children are put to severe moral tests before finally saving both themselves and everyone else. ... Each writer also describes mighty battles within which the good finally manage to defeat the bad. (p.161)

In the opening pages of Northern Lights, Lyra ... hides inside a wardrobe ... The pitiless Tartars that kidnap Lyra ... are reminiscent of the Calormenes in Lewis's The Last Battle ... Pullman may at other times be deliberately imitating the Narnia stories in order then to highlight the fundamental differences between Lewis's approach and his own.
    As Pullman has said himself, he had long 'wanted to give a sort of historical answer to the ... propaganda on behalf of religion that you get in, for example, C.S. Lewis' (p.162).

4. Genesis: 'And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul' (Genesis 2:7); 'And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die' (2:16-17); 'And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs and made he a woman and brought her unto the man' (2:21-22); 'And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed' (2:25).

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons (3:4-7).

4.1 God curses serpent and woman; says to Adam: 'in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return' (3:19); 'And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden' (3:22-23).

5. Pullman's rewriting of Genesis:

[The] story can be read as a fable, with Lyra and Will standing in for Adam and Eve. The suggestion is that our own cultural history might have developed along far healthier lines had the story of the Garden of Eden been interpreted in the first place with Eve the heroine rather than the villain of the piece. Far from an act of tragic disobedience, Pullman clearly believes that her decision to eat the apple was the right thing to do.
    All the disgrace visited upon this action since stems in his view from the Church's determination to keep everyone in a state of continual guilt and fear. ... Now, in a re-run of this famous story, Lyra and Will also disobey the teachings of the Church, but are seen by their supporters to have done the right thing, not just for themselves but for everyone else as well. (Tucker, Darkness Visible, pp.120-21)

6. Milton, Paradise Lost (1667): rewrites/expands upon Genesis to 'justify the ways of God to men' (I, 26); see Pullman's Introduction to new edition of Paradise Lost (OUP, 2005).
6.1 Behind man's 'Fall' is Satan and his followers' rebellion against God, their 'fall' from Heaven to Hell, and Satan's attempt to get revenge by spoiling God's latest project by tempting Adam and Eve to sin.
6.2 Satan represented as proud, ambitious, heroic, energetic, rebellious, evil; Blake claimed Milton 'was of the Devils party without knowing it' (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate 6).
6.3 According to Milton's Beëlzebub, 'There is a place/(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heav'n/Err not) another World, the happy seat/Of some new race call'd Man, about this time/To be created like to us, though less/In power and excellence, but favoured more/Of him who rules above' (II, 345-51); Satan journies to new world; en route, encounters Sin, his 'daughter and [his] darling' (II, 870), and their child, Death; Sin opens Gates of Hell to allow Satan to voyage to new world; he must cross an abyss:

            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 mixt
Confus'dly, and which must ever fight,
Unless th'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 look'd a while,
Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross. (II, 910-20)

Sin and Death amain
Following his track, such was the will of Heav'n,
Pav'd after him a broad and beat'n way
Over the dark Abyss (II, 1024-27)

6.4 Lord Asriel reminiscent of Milton's Satan (Azrael is angel of death in Koran):

Like Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, [Lord Asriel] is a mixture of both good and bad. His mighty ambition is to destroy God himself, just as Milton's Satan wants to wage a war in order to regain heaven after his expulsion for rebelling against God. But after more thought, Satan decides to investigate new worlds instead, just as Lord Asriel does. Like Satan, by building a bridge to another world Lord Asriel risks upsetting the natural order, and in so doing may have been instrumental in introducing the plague of Spectres unleashed on the world. (Tucker, p.146)

6.5 In PL IV, Satan looks into Eden/learns about Adam and Eve's situation:

One fatal Tree there stands of Knowledge call'd,
Forbidden them to taste: Knowledge forbidd'n?
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
Envy them that? Can it be sin to know,
Can it be death? and do they only stand
By Ignorance, is that their happy state,
The proof of their obedience and their faith?
O fair foundation laid whereon to build
Their ruin. (IV, 514-22)

Oversees Adam and Eve's uninhibited nakedness and sexual love – turns to shameful lust after Fall; Pullman echoes and rewrites Milton in conclusion of The Amber Spyglass when Lyra and Will, the church defeated, experience sexual awakening:

And Will knew what it was like to see his daemon. As she flew down to the sand, he felt his heart tighten and release in a way he never forgot. Sixty years and more would go by, and as an old man he would still feel some sensations as bright and fresh as ever: Lyra's fingers putting the fruit between his lips under the gold-and-silver trees; her warm mouth pressing against his (p.510).

6.6 In PL, V-VIII, Raphael satisfies Adam's thirst for knowledge and warns him against Satan; in IX Satan (as serpent) tempts Eve by pretending he has eaten apples from Tree of Knowledge, which have enabled him, a mere beast, to talk and receive knowledge; Eve persuades Adam to eat as well - loss of innocence, onset of shame, passions and 'sensual Appetite' (IX, 1129).
6.7 In XI-XII, Michael (angel) reveals future of humanity (Biblical history) to Adam, including coming of Christ, whose death and resurrection will redeem Adam and Eve's fall and defeat sin and death.
6.8 Between Christ's ascension and Second Coming will be period when Church becomes corrupt, repressive and worldly (for Milton, Catholic Church; for Lyra, alliance between repressive Church and repressive government); Second Coming will defeat this Satanic, Antichristian alliance and usher in 'New Heav'ns, new Earth, Ages of endless date/Founded in righteousness and peace and love' (XII, 549-50); Adam rejoins Eve and they leave paradise.
6.9 NB apocalyptic millenarianism in His Dark Materials, plus sense of destiny/prophecy: Lyra's actions and fate both predestined and yet somehow result of free will and character (central dilemma that confronts Milton and all Christian thinkers).

7. Blake's writings anticipate Pullman's in various ways.
7.1 Critique of repressive church-state alliance (e.g., in 'London').
7.2 Celebration of Satan's liberating energy (Marriage of Heaven and Hell).
7.3 Critique of repression of sex/body; celebration of their energies and liberating potential (Visions of the Daughters of Albion).
7.4 Suggests experience not corruption of childhood innocence but natural development (Songs of Innocence and of Experience).
7.5 Celebration of liberating powers of imagination over repressive reason and religion.
7.6 Radical rewriting of Christianity; re-imagining Christian apocalypse as liberation of human capacities (loving, sexual, artistic, etc).
7.7 Idea that spiritual/emotional forces can be embodied (in Spectres, Emanations, Demons):

the forms of all things
are derived from their
Genius, which by the
Ancients was called an
Angel & Spirit & Demon. ('All Religions Are One', plate 4)

7.8 'Lyra's dæmon is named Pantalaimon (which means "all merciful" in Greek). The word "dæmon" also derives from the Greek, with Socrates at one stage talking about his own daimon, which in his terms was a cross between a conscience and a guardian angel. Always addressed as Pan, Lyra's dæmon is a visible personal soul or spirit' (Tucker, p.141).
7.9 Association between Lyra's daemon and Pan (Greek god) and/or Peter Pan?

8. Science in His Dark Materials (see The Science of Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials').
8.1 Dark materials = dark matter?
8.2 Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis): 'At the magnetic poles, the lines of force [of the Earth's magnetic field/shield] bunch together and funnel down towards the ground, making two holes in this shield. It is these holes that are responsible for the Northern and Southern Lights. The holes are ... important because there is something in space that cannot cross magnetic lines of force, but can get into the holes' (p.39) – i.e., subatomic, electrically charged particles (electrons and ions) from the Sun and from other stars and galaxies: they 'are funnelled down onto the poles of the Earth ... [and] give their energy to atoms high up in the atmosphere, and that is what makes the Northern Lights' (p.44); 'Lord Asriel ... has to go to the far North to carry out his terrible experiments, because it is there that the shield of the Earth's magnetosphere is weakest, and he can tap into the energy of the Solar Wind to make a bridge between the worlds' (p.51).
8.3 Other worlds/quantum physics.

9. According to Master of Jordan College, in Lyra's world the many worlds theory fundamentally challenges Church's authority:

'As I understand it, ... this other-world theory.' (Northern Lights, pp.31-32)

10. Parallel worlds: Lyra's world differs from ours (and Will's), including relationship between science and religion.
10.1 In 'our world' science and religion often in conflict: in 'scientific revolution' of C17, 'natural philosophy' challenged Catholic Church's Aristotelian view of world/cosmos; Inquisition denounced Galileo as heretic in 1633 for defending Copernican model; in Protestant England, scientific revolution tolerated; science eventually developed world view fundamentally incompatible with theology; 'natural theology' was attempt in C18 and C19 to argue that study of nature offers evidence for existence of creator-God, esp. in William Paley, Natural Theology: Or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (1802); natural theology radically challenged by Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859) and no longer taken seriously in scientific circles.
10.2 In Lyra's world, science = 'natural theology', still controlled and interpreted by Church; strangely 'backward' technology: e.g., only flying machines are zeppelins and balloons (NB backward technology in fantasy genre - as opposed to science fiction).

11. Do we need to know science, theology and literary precedents to enjoy/understand His Dark Materials? Trilogy is avidly read by huge numbers of children, some as young as 10, and by adults who have never heard of Milton or quantum physics.
11.1 Imaginative engagement with characters/story = engagement with critique of religion:

In the end, though, the seriousness of Pullman's assault upon the forces of ritual, control and authority – and his attack is fierce and sustained – is carried by the human characters. Here, he transcends the simplification of personality common in fantasy literature, and indeed it would be misleading to limit the trilogy to that genre. His human beings have the courage, the duplicity, the wisdom, the cruelty, the electric sexuality, the ambiguities, and, finally, the complex capacity to love, which mark a great work of fiction. His Dark Materials will surely be valued as one of the most distinguished literary achievements of the 20th century. (Children's Books in English, p.334)

12. Intertextuality: Fader Coram.

13. Lyra: stories; reading/interpretation (alethiometer); identity; destiny: pp.175-6.

14. Parallel worlds (science/theology); dust, sin: pp.283-85.

Seminar

Read chapters 1-2 Northern Lights (Scholastic, 1998), pp.3-33.

What do you find interesting/revealing in these chapters in terms of: (a) how they prepare us for the rest of the novel, (b) the way they relate to the issues we are looking at in this class, (c) literary technique?

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