(spoilers aplenty)
The whole of His Dark Materials is a great work of ideas, over and above plot and character. Some of his ideas I wholeheartedly agree with, such as the suggestion that Eve didn’t cause mankind’s downfall by eating the fruit, but our freedom and intelligence, but the truth is that there are too many unanswered questions, too many convenient plot shortcuts, too many badly-explained contrivances to explain past questions (‘Yeah, when I said, “Let’s destroy dust,” it was only ’cos I know you like lying!”) and too little character development for a really good story. Truly, as I will say one day in a monumental interview (bien sûr), Pullman’s targets are the branches, but my task is to dig up the roots – for what is the point in attacking Christianity when it is a warped, twisted Christianity to begin with? A grotesqued Church I can understand – but not basic theological points. It is right to be indirect, to show familiar ideas in new lights, but not to attack elements of Christianity that simply do not exist. Links between HDM and Paradise Lost remain vague, almost circumstantial, save in Asriel’s character, and he hardly does anything.
The book opens with Will (accompanied by two gay angels, who are hardly characters, but one reappears later, angelus ex machina!) searching for Lyra, who is being kept in a cave by Mrs. Coulter. She is drugging her, keeping her asleep, apparently because she loves her and thinks that this is the best way to stop her becoming the second Eve). He meets Iorek Byrnisson and they find Lyra; Will takes her into another world just as both the Church and Lord Asriel’s forces are coming to take her. The two of them are accompanied by Gallivespians, who are little hand-sized people who ride big dragonflies. Meanwhile, Mary Malone finds her way into another world, and finds some of the only things that inspire more cringing than fairy-sized people: deer-sized, elephant-trunked animals that ride around on wheels made of nuts from some tall trees – trees that she finds out are dying: oh no!
Because when Lyra was asleep, she dreamed about Roger, the boy she never seemed particularly bothered about before, she’s so guilt-wracked that she makes Will take her to the world of the dead. While some great moments are had in this episode – Lyra leaving Pan behind is a powerful moment – it soon becomes really daft, irrelevant to Christianity except as some vague connection to the ‘resurrection of the dead’, and sloppy. So, right, The Authority made it so that people’s souls, when they die, are taken to the world of the dead, where nothing happens. Why? No reason. Malice, maybe.
Will cuts his way out, and the dead can disintegrate gratefully. So when you die, your invisible companion (your DEATH, not your daemon) takes you to the world of the dead, then you walk to the exit, and evaporate. Bit pointless? Ah, well.
Pantalaimon, peeved at being left behind so that Lyra can go for a natter with a dead friend, has run off with Will’s own daemon, who has become tangible in the wake of her abandonment. For some reason, they’ve gone through many worlds and ended up outside Lord Asriel’s palace, where The Chariot (God’s abode) is attacking. With a little help, Will and Lyra find their daemons and escape to Mary Malone’s world. Anticlimax is done excellently as a senile, ancient God (not the creator; he lied about that) is freed by Will and Lyra only to dissolve. Anticlimax is unintentional and bathetic as Metatron, the real threat (delegated most of mad God’s power), gets horny for Mrs. Coulter, and is then dragged into a big hole by her and Lord Asriel. How glamorous.
Will and Lyra have found Mary Malone. The climax has been and gone, but there’s a feeble attempt to inject some drama by having one of the Church’s agents trying to kill Lyra. She doesn’t notice, and he’s killed by a gay angel (see, he WAS important! Um…). Pan and the other daemon are still hiding. Mary, in between worrying about how Dust is going sideways, ‘plays the serpent’ by telling the kids about how sex is great, and they get horny. Pullman is preoccupied with sex, or at least sexual desire, and presents chastity as representational of the uninhibited life the Church prohibits, even though Will and Lyra have barely changed at all, for all their songs of experience.
It seems odd that even though these two kids have somehow reached 12 without thinking about sex, they suddenly realise they want one another and become unconvincingly soppy, in a very chaste and British sort of a way, though likely going at it like rabbits off-stage. Well, they’ve been fluctuating between 8 and 15 all through the series, but never seemed 12, so why should they now? They’d best suit being around 14, I think. Anyhow, it’s no good them being without daemons, since Pullman has a weird genital-substitute thing going on with them touching each other’s furry creatures, so they come back. Meanwhile, the power of love has made Dust behave normally – hurrah! Now we can bask in Dusty cleverness!
Why have the daemons been hiding? Not just through spite – no, they don’t want to go back to Will and Lyra because they know they have to separate. Why do they have to separate? Well, because Pullman wants a sad ending – that really is about the only reason. His excuses are a mess.
They can’t live in worlds that aren’t their own, as they wither away from home. Will has to stay with his Mum, so they can’t be together without sacrifice. Okay so far. But then all the windows have to be closed – oh, except that massive one where the dead come out. Can you close up half of that and keep one? Nah. Why? Only one’s allowed. It’s THE RULES! Sheesh, I thought it was arbitrary, silly regulations this book was supposed to be railing against. So why can’t they just keep cutting through on occasion. Because that makes Ring Wraiths…no, I mean Dementors…oh no, sorry, SPECTRES, that’s it. But about a page later, the angel who’s telling them the THE RULES asserts them that they can deal with spectres. So why not the ones that result from Will and Lyra’s cutting? Dunno. Too lazy, I suppose.
By now, I’m finding the whole business rather unconvincing, but Will and Lyra tearily say goodbye and go back to their separate worlds. So lots of people are dead, the Church doesn’t have an Authority any more, the Metatron’s wicked plan to control everything is foiled and the Dust’s going the right way again. Not bad, but it really didn’t need to take over 500 pages to get there. Some utterly brilliant ideas, and some great moments, but most certainly not the classic I remembered. Ah, well. It was a good read, anyway. And Mary Malone, Lyra and Mrs. Coulter (confused motives aside) were pretty good characters.
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