His Dark Materials

In 1995, young English readers could happily call Philip Pullman their own. Northern Lights was, after all, officially for them. But when the novel was published in the U.S. a year later, adults began to invade their turf. Yes, these usurpers argued, The Golden Compass (as it was retitled) is a spectacular fantasy set in an alternate universe in which only six planets circle the sun, everyone has a dæmon--an animal familiar--and zeppelins and hot-air balloons rule the sky. And yes, it features a fearless, feisty little girl who excels at giving grownups a good talking-to. Lyra's comrades include an armored bear who is a dab hand at both combat and gnomic speech--"War is the sea I swim in and the air I breathe"--and a witch who can "hear immortal whispers from time to time." She will need these allies, and an army of others, in order to rescue a friend trapped in the Arctic. Or so she thinks. In fact, Lyra must fulfill a more complex, earth-altering destiny over the course of this and the next two volumes of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. And all the while she must evade the clutches of several baddies, including the ruthless, alluring Mrs. Coulter. (Let's just say that this woman's golden monkey dæmon would give even Jane Goodall the willies.) But , continued Pullman's older audience, The Golden Compass is also a vital revision of Paradise Lost and a provocative inquiry into the nature of the soul and true goodness--one that proffers a none-too-positive take on organized religion. And the author certainly doesn't pull any narrative punches. In the second book, The Subtle Knife , terrible things continue to afflict the innocent and there are several more wrenching scenes of death. Nor is Pullman afraid of ambiguity. Will Parry, who joins Lyra in her quest while searching for his lost father, is a killer. When Lyra asks her alethiometer--a rare instrument that can reveal the truth to those few gifted or learned enough to read it--about him, the boy very much passes "A murderer was a worthy companion." Now that Pullman's trilogy is complete, youth and age will continue to claim him. All will be frantic to know if Lyra and Will can fulfill their separate prophecies--not to mention what final form her dæmon will take, if any--even as they relish the books' several worlds and singular creatures (from devastated angels to tiny poisonous warriors who ride to battle on hummingbird-skin-saddled dragonflies to beings who look "like a cross between antelopes and motorcycles, but they were stranger than that they had trunks like small elephants"). Just as wondrous, though, are the grace notes, fraught with meaning and longing and all the more precious as they occur in horrific moments. In one scene, children who "had as much substance as fog, poor things," and whose "voices were no louder than dry leaves falling" desperately recall their lost dæmons. In another, right before they venture into "the last of all worlds," Lyra allows herself to hear someone who had earlier seemed more enemy than Her voice was low and expressive, with a current of laughter and happiness under the clear surface. In all the life she could remember, Lyra had never been read to in bed; no one had told her stories or sung nursery rhymes with her before kissing her and putting out the light. But she suddenly thought now that if ever there was a voice that would lap you into safety and warm you with love, it would be a voice like the Lady Salmakia's, and she felt a wish in her heart to have a child of her own, to lull and soothe and sing to, one day, in a voice like that. Throughout his epic, the author does not merely conjure up air and angels, soul and consciousness--he grounds them in a dark yet tender reality. Toward the end of The Amber Spyglass the wise witch Serafina Pekkala urges two dæmons, "Take in all that you can, and remember it well." It's a piece of advice that Pullman's readers will also be keen to follow. --Kerry Fried