His Dark Materials

[blpurdom at yahoo.com]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Aberforth's Goat" 
<Aberforths_Goat at Y...> wrote:
> 
> About the what's-going-on question: The background to HDM is the 
> Christian concept of the Fall. 

I wondered about the reason for Milton being quoted at the 
beginning.  I haven't read Milton in about 19 years, but maybe I can 
dig out those freshman lit notes...

> Dust: Dust seems to be a sort of elemental *spiritual* or 
> *conscious* > particle, that pervades time and space. Just as 
> photons and electrons are the building blocks of light and 
> electricity, Dust particles are the building blocks of conscious 
> experience. And just as photons and electrons are to be found in 
> association with flames and electrical sockets, Dust is to be found 
> in association with beings capable of interacting freely, 
> intelligently and consciously with the world.

Ah, so Dust has to do with Free Will.  (The conflicted Presbyterian 
in me must be coming out).  I suppose as I read, I will be able to 
determine whether Pullman is pro- or anti-Calvin/Knox.  

> Humans, of course, have this capacity; and as they go through 
> puberty, it comes into much sharper focus: hence, grownup humans 
> have more Dust than children. Pullman's religious types figure that 
> it is precisely this capacity which leads people to rebel against 
> God - and hence they want to destroy it. [Sane religious people, 
> including Christians, generally think exactly the opposite.]

So perhaps the children are supposed to be similar to Adam and Eve 
before the Fall?  Interesting take on this part of Western 
mythology...If you're going to re-stage this cosmic battle, I suppose 
you need someone to battle over, and adult humans don't cut it, 
evidently.

> Daemons: Here I'm not quite as sure. I *think* Pullman's daemons 
> are meant to represent the human spirit (or soul or mental essence 
> or non-corporeal aspect or even qualia). The traditional, European 
> and American way of understanding people (or any other sentient 
> beings) is to think of two distinct but ineracting parts: the 
> physical part and the spiritual/mental part. Pullman has given the 
> inhabitants of Lyra's world the advantage of having visible souls. 
> It's a fascinating thought, even for people (like me) who just 
> can't make the two-part theory work.

Is Pullman positing an id/ego split?  Or is it more like the early 
Christian fathers being pro-body and anti-spirit?  I mean the folks 
like St. Irenaeus who went after the Gnostics for denying the 
corporeality of Christ.  Perhaps Pullman is pro-Gnostic?  I'll keep 
an eye out for signs of this, so I know where he's coming from.  The 
daemons are confusing.  When they battle each other, the owners of 
the daemons watch and feel pain, yet don't seem to be active 
participants in the battle.

> (An oddity: most people tend to think that the part of a human 
> being which survives death is the spiritual-mental-soulful-non-
> corporeal part. In Lyra's world it's the opposite. This may suggest 
> that Pullman has something more like "life-force" in mind.)

Now it sounds like you're saying Pullman is addressing something like 
the Chinese "chi."  He really threw a bunch of different stuff into 
this mix, didn't he?  

And to be fair, not all Christians really believe the same things 
about baptism, communion, salvation, the Rapture, etc., so rather 
than saying that Pullman (or anyone) doesn't understand Christians 
and their faith, if I find that his beliefs don't reflect my own, 
that is what I would prefer to say.  He may be reacting negatively to 
a very specific "brand" of religion with which he has had contact.  
When I read things of this nature, I try not to take it personally 
because I don't know what the author's experence might have been with 
religion.  (I know people from many, many religious traditions who 
have had awful experiences for a variety of reasons.)  I didn't 
take "The Handmaid's Tale" personally, for instance, to name just one 
example, but I know of many folks who might do just that.  Obviously 
Pullman has baggage, and it's probably inevitable that it would show 
in his work.  

--Barb