“His Dark Materials” (and Co.) as an Anti-Narnia

I would say that His Dark Materials and its sequels are a religion-sceptic response for books on Narnia by C. S. Lewis. Religion-sceptic, maybe even atheist, but not necessarily progressive.

I don’t mean, of course, that it is bad then. But to be honest, if I want to see the topics of class, race and gender to be explored in fantasy, I prefer LeGuin. Or Leigh Bardugo and Lisa Maxwell. The latter ones are probably considered pop-writers in comparison to Pullman, but I don’t care. They are simply good at introducing particular perspectives without tokenism and without sentiment towards the ([re]imagined) past full of inequalities.

Because the setting of His Dark Materials, criticized in narration as it is, is a response more to the 1950s works of Lewis than to the problems of our world. It looks more like from the novels of Agatha Christie than like an alternative 1990s Britain. As if not only daemons were added there but also as if WWI had never happened. Or at least, that’s my first association. It’s a conservative world where education is elitist and where women are more constrained than they are now or than they were in ’90s. It isn’t actually about steampunk, about retelling fairy-like, irrational Narnia with an alternative world full of science and inventions. There is a vibe of gloomy offices and heavy furniture to it, of Serious Dudes Smoking Cigars and Plotting, of old-style travels and secret conspirations. And if I weren’t well into the conventions of Christie-like literature and its time, I would be impressed. I’m not. Don’ t get me wrong; intrigues in all the books are believable and well-drawn. But there’s also a spy-ish vibe to it which looks even too classical.

And it isn’t a coincidence that the savior of this world is Lyra. An illegitimate child and a rebel, but also the daughter of two influential people, a girl still brought up in an elitist atmosphere and using—even if subconsciously—certain privileges. Will Parry and then Malcolm Poldstead seem like a “commonfolk” response to her character, but it doesn’t change the impression that their commonness is either about Yer Ol’ Good Ruffian England, or, in Will’s case, about poverty porn.

In all this, Pullman isn’t so far from Lewis and his Professor as the symbol of trustworthy elites, and the first King of Narnia serving as the trope of enobled “simpleton”. Or not as much as he’s apparently intended painting his scholars in grey rather than in black-white.

The scientific outcome of His Dark Materials is surely yet another response to Deus ex Machinas and inexplainable magic of Narnia-verse. But does the theory of dark matter explored in the trilogy really look plausible? I doubt. I’m afraid that dark matter and quantum physics aren’t about lost of innocence and Original Sin. But, you know, metaphor. Ok. Got it.

It doesn’t mean that Pullman’s concepts aren’t interesting in his first trilogy. They are damnably interesting. Alternative worlds, mulefa, alternative evolution, intricate mechanisms of changes… And all this in an atmosphere usually shifted towards the cool and ethereal.

And then you are given the equels. Which are centered on the spy-ish things on the one hand and try to introduce purely fantastical elements to the setting—elves, Father Thames and so on. And since we’ve been told that Lyra’s world is quite down to the earth except for daemons, I’m not so sure if those new concepts work for me.

What works well in the original trilogy is the portrayal of women and girls, set against the “chivalric” patriarchy of Narnia. Women are protagonists and scientists, taking their own agency. Witches are a good folk here, not the villains, and if there are women exploring their advantages the way Mrs Coulter does (and Narnia female antagonists implicitly did), it is shown more as the result of patriarchy than as some mysterious dangerous force.

Lyra is go-ahead and courageous but not in the way of Lucy Pevensie. Her traits aren’t shown as something which should change or pass with time, and her easy and unaffected love life in the second equel is a good response to the critics that Lewis drew on Susan.

But equels of His Dark Materials bring problematic questions as well. On the one hand, it explores female solidarity and mentorship in an interesting way through the relation of Hannah Relf and Lyra. On the other one, peer girl friendship looks somewhat tokenistic. And there are descriptions of sexual assaults and harassment which seem worse than triggering. It was probably intended to be a comment on the violence experienced by women but it turns into exploitation-revenge tropes instead. Which isn’t a good way of writing about such things.

And there is another thing—the portrayal of people of colour.

Should I praise Pullman because he, unlike Lewis, avoids dehumanizing them? Because he’s introduced Gyptians as Lyra’s buddies and an African king as the best ally of her dad? Because he manages to write about war refugees with compassion, out of trashy conspiracy theories we’ve gotten to know in our world during the last several years? But isn’t the said non-dehumanizing, you know… Some basic decency?

Maybe… Should I rather notice the way he is villain-ing Tatars? The way he makes a White Savior out of Lyra in the last book? The contrast between “homely” Brytain and “exotic” Orient? Between “square” Brytish people and “exotic” Gyptians?

They are people doing it better. Really. Roshani Chokshi, Lisa Maxwell, Robin Hobb, the immortal Ursula Leguin… And so on.

Thus we’ve gotten to the last opposite and the last trope—Rationalism vs. Religion, Atheism vs. Theism… Call it as you want.

And I have a problem with it. I can see about what it is—I oppose myself the Church meddling with politics and pretending being the only source of morality. I can also see how it is reflected and commented on in those books. But there is something in His Dark Materials and its equels which looks too simplified and not nuanced enough.

I don’t like thinking in dychotomy. And this series gives as a dychotomy—Bad Church vs. Good Rebel Lyra and Her Buddies. When your villains are only villains, it gets boring and no better from the simple morality of Narnia. And when you describe nuns as a good folks who doesn’t understand how vile is their institution (La Belle Sauvage) it’s infantilising and paternalistic.

Sorry, Mr Pullman. There are many good and captivating elements in your books, but the philosophy behind the main plot doesn’t convince me.

Maybe, you see, His Dark Materials and Co. isn’t as anti-Narnian as it wants to be.