Having read Pullman's original His Dark Materials trilogy years ago when it was first published, I thought I'd give his latest offering a chance to entertain me. The third instalment in the trilogy hasn't yet been published, but the first two are certainly page-turners.
Pullman has a lucid, crystal-clear style of narrating, where the authorial voice is kept firmly in the background and the story is foregrounded. I admire his skill as a storyteller. I'm also reading Daemon Voices, a collection of his essays about writing, in which he states his overt intention of being 'invisible' in his books.
I read the first trilogy because I was intrigued by the claim that it was a response to C.S.Lewis's Narnia stories, books I had adored as a child but which I had felt slightly 'cheated' by when I later discovered they were actually about Christianity. I'd been disillusioned by my hero-of-the-time Lewis's other stories, such as his sci fi trilogy beginning with Out Of The Silent Planet and his short stories, which often seemed to me to be quite misogynistic. Rereading The Last Battle recently, I was astonished by its casual racism and the way Susan is dismissed as being somehow unworthy because she likes make-up, clothes and boys. So a trilogy that purported to be a challenge to the Christian orthodoxy of Lewis's best-selling series of novels was extremely tempting.
I remember enjoying the first novel, Northern Lights, more than the later ones. It felt more like a 'children's book', full of darkly imaginative ideas, thrills and adventure, with lively, interesting characters and a pleasurably steam-punk setting. How could the reader fail to love characters like Iorek Byrnison, the fighting bear, and Lee Scoresby, the aviator? I didn't like Lyra, the protagonist, as much as I suspect I was meant to, however, and as the story progressed through the second and third novel, I began to grow a little weary of it. I've never been quite sure why. Maybe my fading interest was because it starts to explore 'adult' ideas more overtly. All the way through the trilogy, I felt it wasn't the sort of series I would have read myself as a child - not because it isn't beautifully written and not because it deals with serious issues, but simply because I suspect I would have found it too challenging.
Interestingly, I also found the first of the current trilogy, La Belle Sauvage - a prequel to His Dark Materials - to be more enjoyable than the second instalment, The Secret Commonwealth, which takes place twenty years later, after the events of The Amber Spyglass. In the first book, Lyra appears only as a baby, and the depiction of ten year old Matthew Polstead, brave, clever, resourceful and kind, is a fabulous hook. The story has a self-contained coherence and a terrifying villain; the characters are vividly drawn, and I felt emotionally engaged with therm from the first page.
In the second novel, Lyra is a twenty-year-old student and Malcolm is her thirty year old History tutor. This book struck me as being much more aimed at adults. I can't imagine a child ploughing through the lengthy political conversations or being particularly drawn to the almost entirely adult characters. It is a clever, tense, exciting narrative which explores the nature of the relationship between daemons and their humans, among many other things. There are several set-piece scenes of stunning brilliance such as the disturbing scene on the train where Lyra has to physically fight off a group of soldiers who are trying to rape her, or the stand-off between the men from the CCD and Mrs Polstead, Janet the secretary and Dame Hannah Relf. Nevertheless, I found myself growing bored by the seemingly endless quarrelling between Lyra and Pantalaimon, which I felt was never fully or clearly explained, and which seemed slightly contrived to me. And I found the potential love story between Lyra and Malcolm a tad unconvincing (just as I had found the earlier one between Lyra and Will slightly unbelievable).
I have to admit here to an entirely unfair prejudice against Pullman based on the fact that, just as the first set of novels appeared, I was writing a children's novel where witches had animal familiars very similar to the Daemons of Lyra's world. It felt as if he'd undercut my idea! But that, I'm afraid, is in the nature of literary ideas - there are only so many to go round.
Pullman weaves in many plot threads which draw on current political events - refugees, terrorism, religious fanaticism, tyranny, undemocratic ideas, the treatment of the poor and of women, climate damage, even Big Pharma. Lyra's world is seriously scary. Fantasy allows writers to explore such 'realworld' issues in a 'safe' space, but it's status as 'fantasy' tends to subvert the serious points being made at times. Nevertheless, I admire Pullman's dedication to presenting such huge issues to younger readers, his courage in not shying away from tackling difficult topics, and his moral wisdom in advocating repeatedly the notion that people's individual choices and the importance of standing up to bullies is of crucial importance if we are to survive the coming years.
RATING:
La Belle Sauvage The Secret Commonwealth Daemon Voices
***** **** ****
Key:
***** highly recommended - a 'must-read'
**** good - well worth taking the time to read
*** ok - will help to pass the time in a boring situation
** not very good - just about readable but flawed
* not recommended - boring, offensive, badly-written or deeply flawed in some other way
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