Poe, Pullman, and Poetics

 

During my last year at the library system I worked for, I served as the teen rep. While we didn't always score literary content for programming, last January we were able to host an event commemorating Edgar Allan Poe's birthday. By some curious twist of fate (or sprinkling of Dust?), Youth Services was providing free copies of "The Raven and Other Poems," slim though comprehensive volumes of Poe. 

These editions also happened to contain a four page introduction written by Philip Pullman. 

As it is Halloween, it seemed fitting to indulge the poetic impulses of this blog one more time. Especially when one has the haunted and haunting lyrics of an Edgar Allan Poe to work with. But most importantly for those of us interested in building the Republic, it provides a nice bookend for my last post, dripping as it was with Pullman and poetics. 

I very much wanted to share some excerpts from the introduction, as it provides some sublime insights into how Pullman writes and thinks and feels, as well as crafting a magnificent lens (or amber spyglass, if you will), through which to fully read and engage with poetry. 

Appropriately written in the "bleak December" of 1999, Pullman offers not simply a short introduction to Poe - his works, his biography, and so on - but a way in which to expertly savor his poetry. Of course, all the titles present in every English 101 syllabus are on display here - "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and Pullman's own favorite, "the strange and unforgettable 'Ulalume'." He conjures up Poe's "weird and intense world" while framing his particular portrait of him, accurately highlighting the "half-horror" and "half-ecstasy" that pervades both his poetry and prose. 

Of course, Pullman being Pullman, his brief intro ensures the stage is properly set with all the properly evocative imagery - spirits flitting in the corner of the eye, floorboards creaking, tree limbs ominously scrapping the window panes, and just the slightest hint of the raven's ridiculously unsettling cry of "Nevermore."

He admits he envies the reader who is about to set sail on their maiden voyage into the shadowy, rhyming twilight of Poe's country. "I hope you read it when you're alone, at night," he tells the reader. "I hope your flesh creeps and your skin crawls and the blood turns to ice in your veins." 

Yet again, Pullman being Pullman, he is not content to stop there. Instead, he shapes another of the infinite windows through which to truly see and feel and experience poetry. He is insistent the words on the page should become something more significant than just said words. 

"I hadn't expected the power of the verse," he admits upon first reading "The Raven," cataloging his immediate sensations as though they were yesterday. "I hadn't expected to find my heart pounding, my fingers tapping, my whole body as excited by the rhythms of the words as by the rhythms of rock 'n' roll or jazz." 

Then Pullman leans in a little closer, and lets the reader in on a critical secret in the reading of poetry, a secret I may never have discovered without him. With all the grace of conscience of one of his fictitious daemons, he sagely advises the reader to take the book, march a fair distance away from everyone else, and read Poe aloud in solitude. One may do so in a whisper, he explains, but it is vital that breath actually pass between the lips. Then the previously latent vitality becomes physical as well as mental, and that brings it all singing to life. 

"Read them with your mouth and your ears as well as your eyes," Pullman teaches us. "That's the only way to feel the extraordinary brilliance of the sound-patterns, the rhymes that lace the lines together." In other words, to truly experience that dread rapping and tapping at the chamber door. 

Poe and what can only be his Daemon

By PakstraX on DeviantArt

On a personal note, I admit reading poetry aloud wasn't anything I would have naturally gravitated toward. Still, it is philosophically fitting that Pullman would key into this. Remember, one of the overarching themes of His Dark Materials is the union of spirit and matter - not the liberation of one from the other, but the synthesis of the two to form a whole (perhaps even "holy"?} person. There is something truly profound in taking a purely intellectual activity and then melding it with the physical, enabling a once mental exercise to be felt firsthand in your bones. 

Like many a Jordan Scholar or Librarian, I admittedly have often had a tendency to live too much in my head, and not fully savor or appreciate the richness of the natural world around me. Remember the rebel angels in The Subtle Knife were dumbfounded that human beings with their remarkably sensitive and aware bodies weren't in a kind of physical ecstasy all the time. So when I made it a point to start reading poetry aloud, the mouthed phrases and melodies took on a new, revitalized reality. 

Some months ago during the pandemic, I found myself sitting beside Stone Mountain Lake. Seldom without a bookbag, I finished off a small volume of Romantic poetry I had been patiently working my way through. Only this time, I was quietly speaking the sonnets and odes of Shelley and Keats aloud, which opened up a new dimension of sound and melody. And the physical response was tangible and real. 

Though I'd read "To a Skylark" or "Bright Star" countless times before, on this occasion, it was a bodily experience as well. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My breathing appreciably changed. My eyes veered close to tears several times. I even sat differently. 

And that is often my experience now, and it can be borderline electric. 

The next point Pullman makes in his introduction to Poe's conqueror worms, cities in the sea, and other inspired, haunting imagery, is about a poem's meaning. Namely, don't allow yourself to be bogged down in what the language and lines mean. The magic of Poe's work does not lie in knowing what a balm is, or who exactly Lenore or Helen were, or where Gilead can be found on a map. It is the tangible feeling the poems evoke and bring to life that is much nearer to their point and purpose. 

"As a matter of fact," Pullman notes, "Worrying about what poetry means takes most of the fun out of it." A teacher of many years, he goes on to criticize the way poetry is often taught. As if it is some sort of prisoner of war that must be tortured and interrogated until it offers up its secrets. Poetry to Pullman is not some kind of foreign language that requires translation until "the whole experience is a torment."

For one, this process as often belabored in schools inevitably short circuits the visceral, even sensual, poetic experience waxed lyrical about a few paragraphs ago. It reduces the embodied, implicit nature of a poem - and lots of works of art - to a frog in a biology class, one that has been cut and dissected, its internal organs poked and prodded and put on display for all to see. As Wordsworth astutely observed in "The Tables Turned", "We murder to dissect," the object of dissection having once been a vital, living entity. 

Pullman clearly does not want us to fall into the same trap with poetry, approaching it with scalpels and white coats, and confining it to sterile lab rooms. The process of poetry is not solely a mental or intellectual or academic exercise - it should have a heartbeat and a life and a tangibility all its own. 

"And that you're allowed simply to say it to yourself and relish the taste and the shape and the color of these mysterious sounds," Pullman says, "Is the key to all of poetry, not just Poe's. And the truly strange thing is that when you do that, it communicates anyway."

 

For me, that was another striking yet unexpected truth. The sounds and rhythms and patterns often communicate beautifully when read aloud, almost independent of whatever meaning or inspiration originally framed them. When Pullman happened upon poetry as a teenager, he didn't necessarily "understand" it, replete as it was with unfamiliar language and endless classical allusions. But he still fell in love with it and, while I personally adore analyzing books and movies and such, the holistic experience of them all has to come first. Then the poetry properly becomes a spell, an incantation, a form of magic. 

And for a long-winded Halloween post, that is perhaps as good a place as any to stop. If anyone has read this far down and is still interested in this train of thought, I highly recommend checking out this video at about the twenty-one minute mark. Here Pullman masterfully elucidates more on his relationship to poetry. 

And if anyone is interested in more spooky reading from Pullman, might I recommend the short though memorable fairy tale Clockwork, or the HDM-inspired e- or audiobook, The Collectors. 

As for Poe, I can inevitably and somewhat predictably leave you with only one video:

Happy Halloween 

and 

Stay Dusty My Friends 

#PhilipPullman  #EdgarAllanPoe  #HisDarkMaterials  #Poetry 

On First Looking into Pullman's Materials

 

On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer

By John Keats

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been 

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold;

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 

He star'd at the Pacific - and all his men 

Look'd at each other with wild surmise -

Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 

During an address to the World Humanist Congress years ago, Philip Pullman admitted his fascination with poetry. As a young man, he identified himself here as a "Romantic extremist." He went on to very reasonably add, "No point in being a Romantic moderate, is there?"

Indeed. That's the sort of thing I like to hear. And I must say, while I am no longer a particularly young man, I can very much relate. Not only was I an English major in college with an emphasis on Romanticism, I also once named a dog Lord Byron. So the roots run pretty deep. 

But anyway, the last time I read "Chapman's Homer," I realized I wanted to say something about it in relation to the Pullmanverse. For one thing, there is a rather direct correlation between the writing of Pullman and the writing of poetry. I will have more to say later on his philosophy of this art, as well as the effect of its sound and textures and rhythms and overall feel on his own writing. 

For now though, while he does technically craft prose, I will posit his lyrical writing is as close to poetry as prose can get. It is almost achingly poetic at times, as one critic noted regarding his last novel The Secret Commonwealth - "every sentence sings." And as far as I'm concerned, it very much does. 

In a Pullman novel, something as simple as a character thinking a thought is given wings and allowed to fly. "The idea hovered and shimmered like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in case it burst." This fictional mental experience is made so real one can almost see it happening, and that is the real magic and quality of poetry.

Lest one think I am too far off base, or simply being hyperbolic, I will mention one of the many iconic scenes in The Subtle Knife, and this one casts a direct line of reference to Keats and our current discussion. Our heroine Lyra has crossed into our world, and is exploring that mysterious Dust which is inexplicably woven throughout the universes. She has met a scientist named Mary Malone, who has rigged a way to communicate with the particles of Dust, which she calls "Shadows." 

Most importantly is the frame of mind she has to conjure up for the communion to take place. As Mary notes, you can't see the particles until you expect to. "Unless you put your mind in a certain state," she explains, adding, "You have to be confident and relaxed at the same time." 

Then she makes the English major in me very happy, and reads a very famous quotation from a letter written by John Keats himself in 1817. In order to see and interact with Dust, one had to be in the same mindset as one who wrote great odes about Grecian Urns, or great YA novels reframing Paradise Lost. "I mean Negative Capability," Keats authoritatively wrote all those decades ago, "that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."

So the mindset for Dust is the same as the mindset for poetry, and the link between Romanticism and HDM is splendidly clear (in regards to this particular literary theory, Pullman himself once likened starting a new novel to moving into an "uncertain fog." Which is remarkably Keatsian).

But for the purposes of the above sonnet, the connection with Pullman and his worlds and "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" is simply much more of an emotional one, a response more steeped in sensation and experience than in particular theories of creativity. At least for me. 

In this truly masterful sonnet, Keats deftly uses the theme of discovery or exploration to underline and accentuate his personal feelings about poetry. Having composed it when he was but a young lad of twenty, the sonnet exquisitely encapsulates the experience of a reader being expertly guided into a previously unknown or unimagined universe. In this particular case, he is immortalizing his feelings on first hearing a translation of the epic poet Homer by the epic wordsmith George Chapman. 

The opening lines beautifully set the stage for us, as Keats speaks of his travels in "realms of gold," and of all the "goodly states and kingdoms seen." He has also sailed to countless islands that paid homage to the Greek god Apollo (appropriately a god of poetry, among other things), but then the literal nature of the imagery takes a sharp right turn. His journeys have not been physical, but rather held within the pages of poetry and verse, specifically the domain of "deep brow'd Homer."

Certainly one of the most striking literary metaphors in the Western canon, Keats' equating the breathless delights of travel with that of reading is hard to forget. Pullman uses the symbolic device of the subtle knife to slice his way from one "realm" to another, but here the device is poetry itself. Halfway through the sonnet, Keats admits that while he had read and experienced Homer before, he had never so purely breathed in and experienced his work until he heard Chapman's translation, when he spoke the ancient bard's words so "loud and bold."

While Keats employs two other metaphors to illustrate his point, it feels necessary to note here how the general theme and experience of his poem can already be pretty neatly used to overlay His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust. For many readers in general, but certainly for myself specifically, this is the kind of feeling that can be experienced when flipping through the pages of any of the aforementioned novels. One may have read fantasy or even literature before, but one had never read it like this. 

In the collection of essays Daemon Voices , Pullman likened reading - and poetry in particular - to "discovering a new continent," where there were "new forms of knowledge, new ways of understanding, immense vistas of possibility." In short,, the reader found themselves in a new world, albeit one in which they were already a native or a citizen  even though they'd never set foot in it before. They understood the language and the local dialects perfectly, despite having never heard them. 

How many of us felt like this upon finishing Northern Lights for the first time? Like Keats on hearing Chapman's Homer, so was I after hearing Pullman "speak out loud and bold" for hundreds of pages. "Yet never did I breathe its pure serene." Breathing is another good Keatsian metaphor. We didn't merely read about Lyra's world - about her beloved daemon, her childhood at Jordan, her eventful stay in London, her quasi-adoption by the gyptians, her voyage to the North - we breathed it all in. 

Indeed, when Pullman described the bitter cold and ice around Svalbard or Bolvangar, we shivered, and our breath turned to frost in front of us. Much like when reading the best poetry aloud, it elicits a very literal and physical effect. 

Like Keats, we also travelled in "realms of gold." In point of fact, we learned alongside Mary Malone that the natural state of life, nature, and the universe in general, was to be saturated in the beautiful golden particles of Dust. We saw not just regular human "goodly states and kingdoms" but ones inhabited and ruled over by powerful armored bears. This is the endless imaginative domain of Pullman, as sure and timeless as the one of "deep brow'd Homer."

The last half dozen lines of "Chapman's Homer" appeal to me in precisely the same way. He likens himself as a reader to an astronomer, a "watcher of the skies" as an unknown and unexpected "planet swims into his ken." Feel free to take a moment to relish that language and lyricism. So again, we have that breathless excitement of such an event coupled with the discovery of reading. 

The HDM equivalent is calling out to me like an irresistible siren song. I'm thinking, of course, of the opening of Northern Lights. Lord Asriel is inspired and championing heretical opinions, commanding the Retiring Room in an effort to secure more of that Jordan funding. As the Scholars, and a hidden Lyra and Pan, gaze on in wonder, an ethereal city appears in one of his lantern slides, outlined in the Aurora Borealis. 

Much like the audience, Lyra mentally gawks. "Buildings and streets, suspended in the air!"

HBO Series

If this isn't a perfect literary metaphor for the kind of awesome wonders that await Pullman's readers, I don't know what is. We are truly kin to that "watcher of the skies" Keats wrote of, kin in spirit and anticipation. And this is only the second chapter of the first book. 

The following and final image the poem leaves us with is arguably the most famous. Keats next spiritually likens himself to the explorer, the "stout Cortez," when "with eagle eyes" he and his men first bear witness to the Pacific Ocean. The only hangnail here is that it was actually Balboa who was the first European to discover the Pacific, not Cortez. 

Still, the palpable rush of excitement is the same, this sudden opening up to new worlds with endless horizons. The first example from HDM that springs to mind is the initial chapter in The Subtle Knife. Our new young hero, Will Parry, is already tired, desperate, and wanted by the authorities. And then he sees a cat that serendipitously leads him to an entrance to another universe hidden in-between some hornbeam trees. Fortunately, he too possessed "eagle eyes" by which to identify this shimmering apparition between worlds. 

In closing, the final lines of "Chapman's Homer" speak of Cortez' men staring at each other "with a wild surmise." Surely this too is an experience not unlike closing Northern Lights or The Subtle Knife or The Secret Commonwealth for the first time (Particularly realizing it may be years before the sequel will be written and published!).

And like Cortez and his men, we stand "silent," though not necessarily "upon a peak in Darien." We have such a plethora of fictitious "peaks" to stand on, whether in Jordan, or the haunted Cittagazze, or the strange world of the mulefa, or simply a worn wooden bench in the Botanic Garden in Oxford. Whatever our particular "peak," we know we have travelled, explored, discovered, and been deeply marked by a literary experience unlike any we have ever known, and might never quite know again. 

And so that's what all of this poetry means to me. 

P.S. This is one of those ineptly titled YouTube videos that makes it seem as though the whole interview is about Brexit. It's far more about Pullman's life and work, specifically as it relates to poetry. I was unaware, but apparently his mother read and wrote poetry as well. Tune in at about the twenty minute mark, as he gives a wonderful account of his first encounters with poets like Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsburg, and of course, John Milton. 

Go watch and enjoy!

Stay Dusty My Friends

Poe, Pullman, 

and Poetics

#PhilipPullman  #BuildingTheRepublic  #JohnKeats  #HisDarkMaterials

Trailers and Featurettes and Subtle Knives

 

After having just seen this on YouTube, I had to share a link here. As noted in an earlier post sharing my personal thoughts (and my personal collection) concerning the Pullmanverse, I do have some mixed feelings on the HBO His Dark Materials series. While I did purchase a digital copy of season one and am currently enjoying my second watch more than my first, I have serious misgivings about the fidelity to the books, or lack thereof. This also includes some of the casting and occasionally the general look, feel, and tone of the show. 

However, I am not a hater, and I'm trying to let it be its own thing. When viewed as a series very loosely based on the novels, I can step back, detach a little, and appreciate it for what it is. I like Lin-Manuel Miranda in general, and specifically what he said here in the featurette. "We get to see all these variations of Philip Pullman's world." I can live with that. It is not His Dark Materials the books - it's a variation, an adaptation, an interpretation. Fair enough. 

(Of if you want to get meta with the "Barnard-Stokes business," if there are an infinity of worlds and universes, well, the HBO series is simply one in the infinite deviations of the prime story)

On its own terms, the series is cool enough. I am fond of some of the cast, and the ambition behind the production. I would be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued by the promise of finally getting to see an adaptation of The Subtle Knife on the screen, albeit a little one. Screen, that is. I sincerely hope the fans and the cast and crew are able to film the third season and final book as well. I definitely look forward to Will and Lyra meeting, as well as the broadening scope of the story. And the daemons do look even better, so hopefully we will see more of them. 

I would also be lying if I said I haven't really liked the trailers for season two so far. I love me some trailers. I'm old enough to remember what it was like when The Phantom Menace trailer debuted over twenty years ago. Whatever one thinks of the final product, that trailer was pure magic. And I also love any behind-the-scenes information and insight I can score, and the above video offers us a really good featurette. 

So go watch and enjoy the countdown to season two!

 Stay Dusty My Friends

#PhilipPullman #HisDarkmaterials #SeasonTwo #BuildingTheRepublic 

Northern Lights Online Event!

Just to let everyone know, there will be an official live event celebrating the anniversary of Northern Lights. This event is open globally, only you must register for it. Tickets in the U.S. are $15, and are available via the Fane Store on Vimeo. Fortunately you can view the event for up to 48 hours. I have purchased a slot, and will be attending and reporting on it later. More information is below, and it was first posted on Philip Pullman's official instagram page. 

Stay Dusty My Friends

philippullmanofficial

✨We have a very special event to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Northern Lights: @philippullmanofficial will be live in conversation with those who have helped bring his stories from the page to our screens.

Discover #behindthescenes insights, with illustrations and clips from @darkmaterialsofficial Season 2 – in a #FaneOnline evening streamed around the world with the acclaimed author, Chris Wormell, Jane Tranter and David Fickling. (Plus some very special readings from the cast of His Dark Materials!)

Sincerely Serpentine

Like so many Pullmanites eagerly awaiting the release of the third and final installment in The Book of Dust trilogy, I was quite eager to get my hands on any bit of new material to help dull the edges of anticipation. 

Fortunately, last week saw the release of Serpentine, the third short novella the Pullmanverse has produced. It began as a hand-written story auctioned off for charity in 2004 after the successful stage production of His Dark Materials. Only now has it been published for a global audience. It takes place a year after the events in Lyra's Oxford, when our heroine is a teenager at school. This adventure begins to set the table, even as an admittedly slim appetizer, for the full-on feast that became The Secret Commonwealth. 

So this is my analysis of Serpentine - spoilers and all - though I do want to offer a bit more than a review. It's always nice to bring something unexpected, but hopefully still entertaining, to the party.

Yes, Serpentine is short, weighing in at about 68 pages. For those who literally expected it to be the finale to The Book of Dust, well ... no. This continues the tradition of the short but sweet aforementioned novellas. Having said that, I would consider it a sound investment for the HDM completist. 

The book itself is pretty handsome, with a rather lyrical and kinetic cover. It will look especially nice on a shelf, preferably snuggled next to the other novellas. Aside from Pullman's prose, which is always a treat, it features lovely little woodcut images/illustrations by Tom Dunbury. 

Pullman has said before he laments the exclusion of pictures from books, so most of the British editions of his work feature illustrations. The prose style is nice and the font size is easy to read, and the book itself is light and attractive. Short or no, the story is worth examining, as it offers a general look at Lyra and her daemon Pantalamion after the events of The Amber Spyglass. But even more intriguing, it also offers a specific look at the relationship between human beings and their daemons in general, which are much richer and more complicated than we had originally imagined. 

The driving engine of the story is actually Lyra's growing uneasy preoccupation with what happened to Pan after they were forced to painfully separate on the shore of the world of the dead in HDM. With very few exceptions, humans and daemons are not supposed to break the mystical link that binds them together. They are mirror images of the other, after all. Here we see the faintest fracture between the two that tragically erupts into a fault line years later. 

The action takes place in the iconic North of the first novel, as Lyra travels to an archaeological dig at Trollesund funded by Jordan College. Legendary characters like Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison merit appreciated shout-outs. The story on display here, however, centers on Dr. Lanselius, the consul who acts as something of a conduit between the outside world and the magical, mysterious world of the witches. 

When Lyra timidly goes to inquire about her own ability to separate, Lanselius educates both her and the audience on how the witches accomplish the same feat. He intuitively guesses her intentions, and it is later revealed he and his serpent daemon can separate as well. During their conversation, Pan and Lanselius' daemon visit the garden outside his house, investigating some cloud-pine left behind by the witches. As such, the consul intuits that Lyra and Pan also have the ability to separate. 

For young witches, Lanselius points out separation is practically a rite of passage. There is a region in Siberia where a cataclysmic war with "the spirit world" once took place. After it became an abandoned wasteland, witches have to pass into it, though their daemons are afraid to follow them. This gauntlet allows for purposeful separation to take place.

Anxious to deal with her own guilt and alienation regarding Pan, Lyra learns that one witch she knew, Serafina Pekkala and her daemon Kaisa, experienced much the same thing. Lanselius assures her that all of the witches "felt a great betrayal" after the act, although he admits it was even worse for Lyra, as she had no idea what to expect. After her own terrible split with Kaisa, Serafina simply "waited, and treated him kindly, and said nothing." 

Lyra realizes she will have to do the same with her daemon, which means she will have to "keep on not knowing" what happened to him when they parted ways for the first time in their life. Dr. Lanselius tries to comfort her, noting "You know, it isn't really surprising that there are things about ourselves that still remain a mystery to us .... Maybe we should be comforted that the knowledge is there, even if it's withheld for awhile." 

Thus the daemon remains a remarkable metaphor for mysterious aspects of ourselves or our consciousness, remarkable not the least of which for being - at least in this alternative Brytain - actually outside the person they're an aspect of. These externalized animal forms are not simply some form of cute decoration, as Pullman insists. 

"I hope that, above all," he writes in the closing notes to this particular story, "these books are about being alive and being human." 

Along these lines, I would like to shift the focus from the narration to some of the meaning lurking behind it. Like Serpentine itself, this is but the briefest of introductions to what will no doubt be an enormous theme of the book I'll hopefully write eventually. Still, as the human-daemon relationship is at the forefront of this little tale, it seems too relevant and interesting not to mention.  

In more than one interview he's given or even article he's written, Pullman has noted the influence of Dr. Iain McGilchrist on his thinking over the past few years. This profound intellectual has been both a student of literature as well as of science and medicine, which has proven an exceptionally fertile ground for him. McGilchrist is best known for the now iconic book The Master and His Emissary, along with its meaningful subtitle, The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. 

In the quickest shorthand, McGilchrist goes along with debunking the once popular psychology regarding the function of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. It's not that the right hemisphere is creative and emotional and the left hemisphere is grounded and rational. Both hemispheres are actually involved in all patterns of mental and emotional activity, be they reading or writing or engineering or mathematics or analytics. However, the way in which the hemispheres process and interpret the world is completely different. 

If we think of it mainly in terms of focus or attention, and speak rather broadly, the right hemisphere of the brain is much more aware of the world it's in and the life it's living. Its attention manages to be more open, broad, sustained, alert, flexible, and intuitive than its counterpart. By contrast, the left hemisphere is often narrow, rigid, focused, mechanical, prone to certainties, and much more concerned with the parts than the whole. 

McGilchrist noted this same brain structure is present in all animals, and hypothesizes it has to do with successfully obtaining food in the wild. The left hemisphere has to narrow in on its dinner and prey, while the right has to be more open to its surrounding environment and be on the look out for danger or potential mates and so on. 

For further information, this is a straightforward animated video that begins exploring these ideas. It's one of the most fascinating strains of thought I've found in recent years, and many people have said it provides an interpretation of not only society as a whole but their own personal lives as well that is rich and revolutionary. While I am quick to point out that this is not an exact correlation, this work in neuroscience is a very powerful lens through which to view the human-daemon relationship in Pullman's work. 

For instance, the alienation between some humans and their daemons can be seen as corresponding to the alienation between the two halves of the brain, and the way they process and assimilate the world. This is a very simple example, but much of the dialogue in the last part of Serpentine can be used to illustrate this. 

On the tractor ride back to the archaeology camp, Pan tells Lyra that Dr. Lanselius hadn't actually known about their ability to separate until Lyra had inadvertently let it slip. The consul's daemon had told Pan that when they had been away in the garden, exploring the cloud-pine. As for Lyra, "Her attention had been focused entirely on Dr. Lanselius himself." 

 

Intriguingly, Pan then reveals that Dr. Lanselius and his snake daemon could separate as well. Lyra is confused by this. "Wait. He didn't tell me he'd done it, but she showed you." Pan confirmed that this is indeed what had happened. Lyra mused that maybe they should have done the same and not overtly told them. Pan agreed. "Yes, just let them see." 

Next, Pan soon reveals that Lanselius and Serafina were once lovers, initially chalking his observation up to seeing a scarlet flower that the witch once wore in her crown. He said the flower was a token of their love, only to initially backtrack and simply hint that he had "worked it out." The snake daemon didn't "tell" him, he just intuited it. Lyra then assured him if Pan knew something, she would soon "know" it too. 

Notice these exchanges somewhat resemble McGilchrist's outline for the right and left hemispheres of the brain. If we take daemons as a loose analogy for the former, and their human counterparts for the latter, the dialogue takes on a deeper meaning. Like the left hemisphere, more concerned with narrowed attention and directly talking to convey knowledge and information, Lyra was focused exclusively on her conversation with Dr. Lanselius. Like the right, Pantalamion was subtly and intuitively working things out, taking in the situation in its entirety.

When Lyra goes on interrogate Pan about the other things he and the snake daemon had talked about, he tellingly remarks, "The fact remains that you don't notice anything, and I do." If the right brain was rooted in speech, this could be a remark it could just as easily make about the left. 

Remember the right hemisphere tends to be much more grounded in reality, and takes into account the whole, rather than just the parts. But yet just as with real human mind, both daemon and human are not simply part of the same being, they are the same being, ultimately whole and inseparable. They nonetheless have different ways of viewing reality. 

"You're more observant, you're this, you're that. I never notice anything ... " Lyra complains to Pan as more snow begins to fall. "That's all true, Pan. I know it is." Then she sums up their delicate balancing act well. "You notice things for me, and I think of things for you. We do what we're good at." 

But she is wise enough to realize they desperately need to nourish each other and maintain their connection and dialogue. "We used to be kind to each other. We are each other. We shouldn't have secrets. We should tell the truth to each other." McGilchrist has said as much concerning the two hemispheres of the brain, and how many of the ailments of current Western civilization are caused by a break similar to the human-daemon separation in Pullman's narrative. 

As night falls and the snow gathers on the ride back, Lyra and Pan finally have their much needed heart to heart talk. Lyra confesses she knows she did something horrible to him when she abandoned him on the shores of the world of the dead, and that he had the right to keep his experiences to himself. She didn't want to push him, but at the same time, she didn't want him to ever feel that she didn't care about him and his well-being. 

Unknowingly laying groundwork for The Book of Dust trilogy, Pan goes on to let her how even all witches and their daemons do not come out of the separation process whole again. Tragically, this most intimate relationship is severed for other people in their world as well, with humans and their daemons sometimes refusing to speak or even touch each other. 

"They only live half a life, really." 

Such is metaphorical of the crucial relationship and balance between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, with human beings in the real world acting in often total estrangement to vitally important aspects of themselves. But more on that in a later book. 

In conclusion, Lyra thinks back to the abyss she very nearly fell into in the world of the dead, while Pan and his fellow daemon Kirjava were off exploring on their own. At the same time, the daemons had fallen into a river and gone over a waterfall. Both somehow sensed what the other was going through, hinting at their still powerful connection after all. 

After a quick word about crucial characters like Will Parry and Mary Malone from HDM, Pullman writes "They both fell silent. But this falling was into the loved and familiar, into safety." For the purposes of this short story, Lyra and Pan earn a temporary reprieve, with both respecting the other. "[Lyra] felt proud of him, because not many people had daemons as clear-sighted as Pantalamion. She stroked his head and settled down deeper in the furs as they fell asleep." 

Unlike the "falling" when they were separated and making their way without each other, this "falling" is blessedly together, and if no more had been written on their story, one would hope their relationship was back on its way to being repaired. 

Well, thanks to anyone who actually read this far down, as this review feels about as long as the novella itself. But I just wanted to explore some themes and metaphors in anticipation of what is to come later, in whatever format. Serpentine was not much on action and adventure, but it did offer a nice snap shot (or lantern slide), of the ever-intriguing world of Lyra and Pan. 

One thing I failed to mention was Pan's idea concerning how he and Lyra might be able to bypass the alethiometer altogether, and tease knowledge and insight out of the universe directly, without using the truth telling device as a medium. Now that is a fascinating idea, and I for one am eager to see if Pullman will capitalize on it in the final novel .... 

P.S. This is a great little article on the publication of Serpentine, so enjoy! 

Stay Dusty My Friends 

Northern Lights Online Event!

#PhilipPullman   #HisDarkMaterials  #TheBookOfDust  #Daemons  #Dust 

My Jordan Library

 

After years of service as a public librarian, it slowly dawned on me my ideal profession in Lyra's alternate Brytain would have to be a librarian at Jordan College. It may not be as exciting as studying ice bears at Svalbard or being a laconic Texas aeronaut, but honestly, I can very easily see myself spending a fine life at this grandest of the Oxford colleges, happily cataloging books and anbarographs while neatly tucked away by the Melrose Quadrangle. 

As is, I feel a personal touch is in order here. So I invite you along to tour my own little Jordan library of All Things Pullman. I'm an American, so I'm especially proud of the British editions. Break out the decanters of tokay, kick back with 

some smokeleaf, and I'll arrange the lantern slides and photograms 

and take you through my modest (though proud) collection. 

Perhaps not particularly enthralling, these are my standard US editions of His Dark Materials. To be honest, they are not even the oldest editions I have ever read, nor are they the first ones I bought. I purchased the trilogy back in the mass market paperbacks that were published in the nineties, only to give them away at some point. I was intent on upgrading to the quality paperbacks anyway, so here 

we are. And the cover designs are rather nice.

These are my special editions of The Golden Compass. The first is the fantastic 20th anniversary edition complete with slip cover, and the second is the legendary 10th anniversary one, complete with some exclusive Lord Asriel papers documenting his expeditions in the back. 

And these are my original American hardcover editions of The Book of Dust 

in all their Dusty glory. And yes, the middle La Belle Sauvage is a collector's edition. 

And did I mention that one was signed by the man himself? I randomly picked this up at a Books-A-Million, and even snared a second one for a library coworker. To know that this was once actually held in the hands of Philip Pullman makes 

me very happy. I am sure my daemon has done a fair amount of backflips 

over it, snow leopard or no. This is the pride of my modest little collection, to be sure. 

My recently acquired British paperback editions of His Dark Materials. Courtesy of 

a used bookstore outside of Atlanta, as well as Abe Books here on the web. 

I waited to secure this edition of the trilogy for a long while. I have yet to read 

them but I will be using them as the definitive source when I write my own scholarly book. I do so enjoy the British spellings, as well as the complimentary covers. 

And likewise, my British quality paperback copies of the first two books in The Book of Dust trilogy. Sadly not signed. Happily shipped quickly and safely. Also secured courtesy of Abe Books, which I highly recommend for alternate editions. 

And what Pullmanverse collection would be complete without these little tie-in novellas? I should add I once had hardcover editions of Lyra's Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North, but they went the way of my Golden Compass movie bookmark, and they simply disappeared. Perhaps they really did fall through one of those mischievous cracks between the worlds?  Serpentine is obviously a recent acquisition, and hopefully I can quickly write a little review of it soon. 

I should also assure everyone my Audible account is stuffed full of daemons and Dust as well as my bookshelves. I own the magnificent full cast versions of His Dark Materials, narrated sublimely by Pullman himself. Speaking of sublime narration, Michael Sheen reading La Belle Sauvage and The Secret Commonwealth is incomparable as well. Amazingly, I managed to pick up the latter on sale for about ten dollars, so best ten dollars spent ever. Once Upon a Time in the North is also narrated by Pullman with a full cast, and well worth the investment. 

Completist that I am - or at least aspire to be - I also own both the ebook version of the short story "The Collectors," as well as the wonderful audio version as performed by Bill Nighy. I recommend both, and apparently a printed copy will eventually be available. Might I add, also nice for Halloween, as it is a spooky tale featuring everyone's favorite femme fatale and her golden monkey. It was originally simply going to be a ghost story before the HDM elements were officially locked down.

As much as Pullman disdains the title The Golden Compass, that's how the first novel is marketed in the U.S. So this is my two-disc blu-ray special edition of the New Line movie of 2007. And look, I know the HBO series is the rage right about now, but I have a very soft spot for this movie. Yes, it has its issues. The directing and editing wasn't always the best, and the ending was non-existent, but I'm going to echo what Pullman always says - the cast was perfect. I hope to review it at some point too. 

I saw the graphic novel at my library for years, though initially it was chopped into two parts and didn't cover the full story. I repeatedly picked it up but never read it. I finally bought it at the bookstore the other day. I've read about twenty pages, and it's pretty cool. I'm just open to adaptations being adaptations, and that's that. I would like to try to review the graphic novel as well when I've completed it. 

And again, in the interest of being a completist, I also talked myself into purchasing a digital copy of season one of the HBO series on Amazon. I of course watched it as it aired, but I have mixed feelings on this one. More on it later, but I feel tonally the show is a bit off. That also seeps down into the cast and the basic aesthetics of the series. It is all solid and competent, as far as it goes, and the actors are all very talented but ... it's just not really HDM to me. Or to put it another way, it feels lesser than the sum of its parts. 

The mission statement originally seemed to have been since we now have a long form show by which to adapt the story, we can be very, very faithful to the books. And I know a movie or a series is not a novel and changes must be made, but season one did not work that well for me. I'm not a hater, but that's how I feel. I will give it another shot since I own the digital version now. 

I am still skeptical of the show, though that season two trailer does look very impressive. Or maybe it's just the latent excitement of finally getting to see an adaptation of The Subtle Knife on a screen.

And a loose assembly of HDM tie-in books I've collected over the years. Critical Perspectives and The World of the Golden Compass are each a collection of essays, while the last one is a rather comprehensive Rough Guide to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, outlining everything from the characters to the worlds to the adaptations to the real life inspirations from science and religion.

Once upon a time I owned Laurie Frost's definitive The Elements of His Dark Materials, but alas, it was either lost in a move, or again, lost to one of those 

pesky interdimensional cuts left by the Aesahaettr. 

A special shout out goes to this book, courtesy of Donna Freitas and Jason King. I had been wanting to read this one for awhile, finally found it online, and was not disappointed. This has probably inspired a lot of my own work and thinking, as these two offer the same kind of intelligent, nuanced, and sensitive reading of the Pullmanverse that resonates strongly with me. Far from being an atheistic 

manifesto, HDM is addressed as a rather profound religious text, with a strong connection to the divine.

Maybe not directly related to HDM or TBOD, but Daemon Voices has to get an honorary mention, as it forms a wonderful backbone to all those fictional worlds. To be honest, I own the hardcover edition, I own the e-book version, and I also own the audiobook, not least of which because it's also narrated by Pullman himself. 

To put it simply, Daemon Voices is a collection of essays, articles, and lectures that span many years, and they serve as just a continual source of inspiration and imagination. Indeed, if you are a poet, writer, painter, musician, filmmaker, whatever kind of artist, this should be your bible. That's why I own so many different versions of them! And in no small part, they inspired this blog and everything to come. 

To sum up, I hope all of you have enjoyed learning more about me and meeting my books. Rest assured, they are safe and sound, and far out of the reach of the Magisterium. As I spoke about Donna Freitas an entry back, this video is one of 

the interviews she masterfully had with Philip Pullman over a decade ago, and happily still available on YouTube. It sums up the Republic perfectly, as well as offering a taste of her own work.

Stay Dusty My Friends 

Sincerely Serpentine

#PhilipPullman  #HisDarkMaterials #TheBookOfDust #RepublicOfHeaven