Shining and Shedding Light on His Dark Materials
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Philip Pullman, prize-winning novelist for children, young adults, and adults, has progressed from a big deal to a real phenomenon. But now he has become an industry. The British play based on his writings created a positive stir. The on again/off again movie (no doubt, the first of three) is on again, finally, with big-name stars signed to major roles—questions about religion and about how God will be portrayed, if at all, notwithstanding. Move over, Harry Potter; out of the way, Frodo; step back, Aslan; sheath your sword, Eragon; Lyra Belacqua has captured center stage.
Fantasy/science fiction, that truly melded genre—that hotbed of strange worlds, unique casts of characters, lonely quests and mind-boggling adventures—is now a solid component of our popular culture, a staple of our visual imagination. Its books not only sell; they produce movies, TV shows, stage plays, and Web sites. Various concordances, those extra-text ventures, line the shelves of the box bookstores. Actual books of this genre vary wildly in scope; their range is vast. The boundaries extend from simplistic lexical renditions of video games, as echoes of PlayStation® or grade B movie plots, to sophisticated allegories of our contemporary world. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy fits squarely at the latter end of the genre's spectrum. And because it does, scholars have turned their attention to his work, lending a decidedly academic aura to his popularity. Books have been written, articles have been published, and dialogues have blossomed on listservs. Pullman himself has participated to a limited extent, adding to the general din with his participation on the listserv <child_lit> as well as with lectures, commentary, e-mail correspondence, and speeches.
One such critical book, His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on Philip Pullman's Trilogy, edited by Millicent Lenz and Carole Scott, actively fosters critical debate about Pullman's texts. Lenz states this quite clearly at the end of her introductory essay, noting that "the essays present differing and sometimes-contradictory interpretations" (13). The selection of fourteen essays has been "so arranged that the critical 'dialogue' that informs them will stimulate further discussion and [End Page 243] research" (13). From Lenz's introductory essay to the final section of the book, various scholarly perspectives examine major themes found in Pullman's trilogy. The critical essays run the gamut of theoretical approaches to the trilogy, from reader/response to deconstruction.
Lenz extols both the literary value and the timeliness of the trilogy. At the onset of her introduction, she states that Pullman's trilogy "speaks to some of the most urgent dilemmas of our time and suggests, for the thoughtful reader, not answers to the ills that presently beset us but rather ways of meeting them with courage and surviving them with grace" (1). The introduction then sketches several themes that find their way into the articles selected for the book. These thematic topics are: "The Familiar and the Uncommon: Myth Reinterpreted for Our Time," "To Be Awake and Alive," "Myth, Music, and Consciousness Transformation," "Levels of Consciousness and Their Functions in the Novels," "Theme of Creativity in His Dark Materials," and "Creativity and Responsibility of the Storyteller." Lenz's introduction, while providing the necessary backdrop for the essays that follow, ends with a paean to Pullman, for it is "Pullman's artistic mastery, the universality of his ultimate concerns, his melding of intertextuality and originality, and the timeliness of his call for intellectual honesty, emotional moderation, and awakened consciousness" (13) that provide the inspiration for the book.
The editors divide the essays into three sections: "Reading Fantasy, Figuring Human Nature," "Intertextuality and Revamping Traditions," and "Pullman and Theology, Pullman and Science Fiction." Each section leads with an excellent three- to five-page summative discussion outlining the main ideas delineated in each of the essays that constitute the section. Indeed, for this review, I could have quoted liberally from these lead-ins to account for each individual essay in their respective...
