Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v030.n119

From: Alice Turner <akt at attglobal.net>
Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 15:56:53 +0000

Said the Bear:

> At 18:51 2001-05-24, alga wrote:
> >"An Almost Christian Fantasy," the review by Daniel Maloney in the
> >Catholic journal First Things of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy
is
> >up. Intelligent analysis, I think, not just religious but literary.
> >http://print.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0105/reviews/moloney.html
>
> Thanks for that, alga! I finished the series just last night,
> and I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one who didn't consider
> it entirely satisfactory. The plot of the third book is somewhat
> loose, but with so much wonderful writing and emotional power I
> could overlook that, provided there was a proper resolution.
> I couldn't understand why the Dust stopped flowing away just
> because of Will and Lyra's love; it feels right emotionally, but
> at least a hint of a rationale would have been nice. Her prophesied
> destiny as some sort of Eve comes to absolutely nothing that I could
> see. As for them being parted, well! That was just horrible. It really
> upset me. Why did he have to do that?

Oh, boy. I have thought of this so many different ways, since I am
trying to figure out a way of writing about this series that sticks to a
point, and of course Dust sort of has to be the point. Pullman is
currently writing a short "reference book" to be called -The Book of
Dust-, but I see no particular reason to wait for him. Virtually
everyone--no, strike that, every grown-up person--feels the failure of
the third book. We're trying to make it work, and I am specifically
struggling with how to explain Dust (and the Specters) in terms of
Manichaean Light and Dark and a logical world-view (pretty damned hard
to do when there are infinite worlds).

But let me tell you something really fascinating. Kids *love* the third
book. Crowley told me it was the favorite of his daughter Hazel (just
14). And today I found the "fan fiction" site of His Dark Materials.
This is something for you grown men to take a gander at, all of us who
think we're so smart, in fact. Of 60 entries on these pages, fully 55
explore, in Borski-esque variants, the fate of Will and Lyra, some in
poetry. I have to assume that most of them are written by girls about
Hazel's age. Not a single poem about Iorak Birninsen! (Though elsewhere
Serafina Pekkala has something of a fan club--include me in; I'll be a
charter member of the Mrs. Coulter club, too.)

http://www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=story-listfiles&Page=1&Catego
ryID=632&sort=DatePublished&GenreID=0&LanguageID=1

Bear, the Eve thing is very difficult to figure in a truthful, honorable
way. I waver, but mostly I feel that it was a mistake on Pullman's part,
both in a moral and in a religious sense. The kids seem to adore it in a
tearjerker way. Is that because my daemon has settled and theirs have
not?

-alga

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

---

From: Spectacled Bear <spectacled.bear at pobox.com>
Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 16:58:10 +0000

At 20:56 2001-05-24, algawrote:
> Virtually

[waves to Copperhead thread!]
It doesn't need to be Manichean, does it? The Authority doesn't
have the power of Creation that he claims, after all. The Spectres
are kind-of believable, as is Dust leaking into the abyss through
the windows. I'm not sure a strictly logical world-view is helpful,
because then you might wonder whether Dust could cross between worlds
(and if so, how) or if not, why the window from the land of the dead
couldn't open onto a world without intelligent inhabitants. It will
be interesting to see how the Book of Dust copes with all this!

>book.

This is a considerable relief, as my son has just started reading
Northern Lights (the UK name for The Golden Compass). I've been very
worried, since it hit me so hard. And he isn't reading it at bedtime
(I'm reading him Mrs Pepperpot stories! How's that for a contrast?
Children are wonderfully versatile), so the night-ghasts will probably
be okay. I found the Spectres too abstract to be properly frightening.
I was much more worried by the Harpy (he has a very vivid imagination)
but the story takes care of her very nicely indeed. Dodgy plot or not,
it is still an exceedingly good book. I was pleasantly surprised, in
fact, after opinions voiced here - I liked the mulefa, for example.

>both in a moral and in a religious sense.

Another loose end is the super-Dickensian-and-Wolfian-put-together
degree of coincidence required for the plot of The Subtle Knife.
Will just happens to find that window? Then happens to walk into
the one room in a deserted city in the particular world where Lyra
is hiding? Clearly not coincidence, but I don't recall anything being
said about it - apart from them remarking on the unlikelihood! It must
be something like the shaman summoning Lee, or Bilbo finding the Ring,
but it would be nice to be told.

>The kids seem to adore it in a

I suspect it's because they don't have as much experience of loss
as adults, and don't feel the full force of it. It *is* enjoyable
in a tear-jerking way, and I would have loved it if it had come in
the middle of the book but they got together at the end. There's
that tantalising hint about imagining yourself into other worlds
- not the same thing as pretending, we are told explicitly, and
the angels employ it as a practical means of travel - but it isn't
followed up. Will is told he knows someone who can help him with it,
and he doesn't even ask who it is, though it could hardly be anybody
else but Mary. That's confirmed by Pullman himself at the readerville
site Adam posted, in the message that breaks off "She is the one who
will tell him how to imagine his way into o". It's quite an interesting
site. He says that Will and Lyra have to be parted, and some readers
agree that it brings closure to the story. It certainly avoids him
having to worry about the consequences of traffic between the worlds.
Leaving everything more or less as it was before, only better, is
characteristic of children's fantasy [one more reason to admire Alan
Garner's _The Moon of Gomrath_, which doesn't]. Here I think it serves
the didactic purpose of encouraging us to build the republic of heaven
where *we* are: it isn't Will and Lyra who would spend all their time
searching for a second window - they would have a private one, hidden
in the back of a wardrobe - it is us.

Hey, I convinced myself!
But I'm still cross.

Spectacled Bear.

---

From: eli+ <eli+ at gs211.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 15:22:02 +0000

Spectacled Bear wrote:
> At 20:56 2001-05-24, alga wrote:

Interesting.  I wonder whether the difference is that they don't feel
the flaws that many adults do, or that they feel certain strengths more
strongly.

> Garner's _The Moon of Gomrath_, which doesn't]. 

Retargeting a bit, what about leaving everything more or less like it is
in our world, whether it started that way or not?  Oooh, this can get my
dander up, and it's not just children's fantasy either.  Some authors
write as if I can't bring anything home from the book unless it reads
right up to my door, and slams the door behind me to boot.

> Here I think it serves

That didactic purpose I can appreciate, but he weakens it by forcing the
story.  He tried to set up "Cold Equations"-style plot mechanism which
threatens global disaster to _coerce_ Will and Lyra's decision -- rather
than letting us see what their own wisdom leads them to decide.  That's
a lesser story.

I remember that my reading experience when I hit this was not one bit
high-mindedly didactified, but was on the same mechanical level as his
setup: but but but the Dust ecology is not at risk, because brief
openings don't leak on the scale of the natural influx we've seen, and
creating Specters is no problem with a little help, since the angel has
said she can deal with those.  If it had occurred to Will and Lyra that
the obstacles were not absolute, they could have gone on to ask more
interesting questions: what if everybody did it?  are we special, to
justify it?  And the question Pullman didn't dare to ask them: even if
we can, should we?

In a way, he did quite right.  I don't know that they would have
answered the way he wanted.  The honest story, I want to call it though
I really shouldn't, might be a tragedy.

-- 
     Eli Brandt  |  eli+ at cs.cmu.edu  |  http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~eli/