His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

The Golden Compass (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), or Northern Lights as it was originally titled when published in the UK, is the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. Originally meant to be a trilogy, he's gone back and added more to the world in more recent years. The following two books are The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. The Golden Compass came out as a major motion picture in 2007 with a star-studded cast, including Nicole Kidman in the role that made me permanently unable to trust her (she's evil, you'll see). It also came out as a three-season TV show from 2019 - 2022 on HBO that was fantastic.

His Dark Materials tells the story of young Lyra Belaqua as she sets off to the frozen north to rescue her best friend Roger after he's been kidnapped by Gobblers. Along the way she meets a wonderful cast of characters, both good and evil, each with their own motivations and beliefs. And just what is Dust? There's plenty of murder, torture, ripping people apart from their souls, and, oh, religion in this story. If you already weren't aware the story was some kind of a religious allegory, let's start with the fact that Pullman opens the book with a quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost (Book II).

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 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 awhile, / Pondering his voyage...

Alright, so I've read a couple of pieces of Paradise Lost which fully convinced me that I do not want to read Paradise Lost, but for those who are confused, a short summary. Paradise Lost is an epic poem (meaning very long) in free verse (meaning no rhyme or meter scheme) that tells the story of the Fall of Man (Adam/Eve/Garden/Snake/Apple) and the battle between God and Satan. So yeah. Pullman has some beef with the Catholic Church.

Once we're through the Milton, the next part gives a bit of an explanation of the location, which is fairly helpful:

The Golden Compass forms the first part of a story in three volumes. The first volume is set in a universe like ours, but different in many ways. The second volume is set in the universe we know. The third volume will move between the universes.

While place names are different in Lyra's world (the country of Texas...), the biggest difference is that instead of having their souls on the inside, people have separate souls called dæmon that takes the shape of an animal. Despite an urge to pronounce it day-mon, or even using the International Phoenetic Alphabet to shound it out (it would make the æ into the AAH sound in cat), the being is supposed to be pronounced demon. I'm sensing a theme here.

Once you get past the part about the big, evil organization called the Magisterium trying to control the world having Bishops and speaking about the Authority's will, you can dive in to the other, less-religious parts of the book. Sticking with the dæmons, for now, they were one of the most interesting things in the book. Lyra's dæmon was named Pantalaimon, or just "Pan", and as the dæmon of a child, he was able to change shapes. Once they pass into puberty, dæmons will settle into a single form that they keep their entire lives. What the dæmon is tells a lot about the person, too, in a stereotypical way, such as a character with a snake dæmon might wind up being sneaky and sly.

"As you grow up you start thinking, well, [your dæmon] might be this or they might be that… And usually they end up something that fits. I mean something like your real nature. Like if your dæmon’s a dog, that means you like doing what you’re told, and knowing who’s boss, and following orders, and pleasing people who are in charge. A lot of servants are people whose dæmons are dogs. So it helps to know what you’re like and to find what you’d be good at.” (Spyglass)

While a human frequently touches or carries their dæmon, touching someone else's is a huge taboo. It simply isn't done. It's not explained how the taboo started, but it's shown clearly why, when someone picked up Lyra's dæmon, she seemed in pain and passed out. Dæmons are, by overwhelming majority, of the opposite sex as their person (in this case, Pan is a male) which says something rather feminist or queer about people being both male and female inside. Additionally, it's explained at one point that children frequently settle disagreements with one another by dominance challenges with their dæmons. In one case, Pan managed to make another girl's dæmon recoil in submission, so Lyra knew that when she told the girl not to follow, the girl wouldn't. It's said that the children accept the results of their dæmons' challenge without complaint or bitterness against their dæmon as well.

When Roger goes missing, Lyra gets very upset, as is expected, but very quickly becomes distracted by the next shiny thing that comes along; specifically, Mrs. Coulter. When Mrs. Coulter offers to take Lyra on as an assistant, Lyra eagerly agrees, only mildly mentioning oh, we can go find Roger while we're at it, right? It's not until after she leaves Mrs. Coulter and takes up with the Gyptians who are on their way to attack the Gobblers already does Lyra again seem to care about Roger. In fact, at the end, when she knows Azrael intends to sever the bond between Roger and his dæmon Ratter, she even stops to look at the aurora's movement while trying to run to save him. I get that the aurora is new to her, magnificent and all that, but I think I'd be ignoring it to save my BFF. Then, after Roger's death, it takes Lyra being drugged into some kind of metaphysical dream of the land of the dead for her to think about Roger again. He was a bit dopey and annoying, but he probably didn't deserve the shit ending he got.

Despite my absolute loving adoration for Iorek Byrnison, Lyra went from barely knowing and having a respectful fear of the armored bear to stating how much she loves and trusts him. That she knows he will come save her in whatever instance. Iorek is her knight in dented armor and she has full confidence in him. He deserves this, but maybe not so quickly as Lyra determined. I'm not certain if this was supposed to be Lyra being good at picking out who to trust quickly and instinctually, or we are supposed to assume bonding time never displayed in the book, or if it's just a bad development.

Speaking of Iorek, I thought the bear culture was interesting, specifically that you can't lie to or trick a bear. The reason Iofur Raknison was able to be tricked was because he was trying too hard to be human and had lost his bear nature. Pretty much anything to do with the bears makes me happy, I can't pinpoint why. My regret in the books is that there's no interactions with female bears. I'd like to know more about them. Is this a patriarichal society? Is it close to the solitude of bears in real life? Do females have armor? Iorek was banished because he killed a bear fighting over a female, but where is this female now? I need more feminism in my bears.

At the end, when Azrael is calling for a child to sever and the first person on his doorstep is Lyra, he panics. This is the first and, really, only place I see Azrael as maybe caring for Lyra.

Lord Azrael's snow-leopard dæmon growled.

Lyra's father stood there, his powerful dark-eyed face at first fierce, triumphant, and eager; and then the color faded from it; his eyes widened, in horror, as he recognized his daughter.

"No! No!"

He staggered back and clutched at the mantelpiece. Lyra couldn't move.

"Get out!" Lord Azrael cried. "Turn around, get out, go! I did not send for you!" (364)

Like holy cow, Az, those are some emotions you never showed before. And he's so upset about it too, like Azrael, you don't have to kill her just because she's the first child on your doorstep. He's absolutely a drama queen. Which is probably why he fits so nicely with Mrs. Coulter. How can she get so far away from her dæmon anyways? Did she go through the witches' trial? The final scene in The Golden Compass where Azrael tries to convince her to go with him just adds on to their drama-factor.

His hands, still clasping her head, tensed suddenly and drew her toward him in a passionate kiss. Lyra thought it seemed more like cruelty than love, and looked at their dæmons, to see a strange sight: the snow leopard tense, crouching with her claws just pressing in the golden monkey's flesh, and the monkey relaxed, blissful, swooning on the snow. (Compass 395)

Yeah, we'll just leave it there on that cozy sadomasochistic note.

I was originally planning on making individual posts for these three books, but I got too invested and ended up reading them all before starting in on The Subtle Knife. Lesson learned for the future, I guess.

The intro to The Subtle Knife by was killer. I remember being confused and frustrated the first time I read it because who the hell is Will and where is Lyra, but this time going through, I thought it was great. I love just throwing Will's mother / her mental illness into the story like that, barefaced, it was really poignant for me. The fear and love Will shows for his mother throughout The Subtle Knife and into The Amber Spyglass is really amazing.

On the other hand, I can't stand his father. John Parry is this ridiculous martyr in the book, has no time to develop any real personality, and then ends up getting MY MAN KILLED (Lee Scoresby is the best character in the entire series and if you disagree I will fight you). John doesn't seem to have much care for his son, doesn't speak of him at all until he runs into him. Not even a sideways mention of him. Then he gets himself one-shot by Juta Kamainen. Who is Juta Kamainen? A random witch whose love he spurned in his backstory, because he was married and actually loved his wife. Like how could the witch take umbrage with that?

As I general rule, I adored the other witches in the story, especially, of course, Serafina Pekkala. The fact that Lyra only ever called her by her full name was an interesting quirk that was never explained. The different types of people living in Lyra's world were so much more interesting than any of the other worlds'. Obviously Will's is ours, so only humans, but even the world that held the doorway to the land of the dead had only one species of confirmed sentients.

Lyra's world had the cliff ghasts as well, which are another thing I don't think enough time was devoted to. They seemed to have their own kind of mythology but nothing specific was given about it.

The specters were a huge deal that were never completely dealt with either. They confirmed that they came from the void, but what exactly was the void? Will had the vague idea that maybe specters were a physical cause of depression, which I thought was an excellent idea. All of the symptoms seem legitimate, as far as them losing interest in everything, being sluggish and apathetic. I think I would have rathered that as the answer than the indescribable void.

Pullman has since written quite a few more books in this universe, which I will get to in time. Titles include Once Upon a Time in the North (His Dark Materials #0.5), Lyra's Oxford (His Dark Materials #3.5), Serpentine (His Dark Materials #3.6), La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1), The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust #2), and an unnamed upcoming third book in the The Book of Dust series. If there are ones I'm missing, please let me know!