A Boy, a Canoe, and Eternity's Sunrise

 

Salutations. 

While this was not necessarily a planned post, a book on Amazon was suggested to me, and the mythical algorithms relentlessly clicked into place. As said book looked promising, I downloaded the sample, quickly read it, and then promptly purchased the e-version. Several chapters in and I was so certain it would prove invaluable as a reference tool later, I then even more promptly purchased the quality paperback. 

As it is a very handsome book, with the font an admirable size, colorful paintings and illustrations, and very impressive content, it is a title that will fit in well in my increasingly large collection of titles on or by William Blake (In case I don't do an essay on it, Roderick Tweedy's The God of the Left Hemisphere comes very highly recommended by Pullman himself, and I couldn't agree more. So FYI).

But for now, the work in question is Eternity's Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake, by Leo Damrosch. A literature professor at Harvard, Damrosch has crafted a truly intriguing and insightful book about that beloved yet sometimes inscrutable poet of both words and images, William Blake. It is not simply criticism and analysis, nor is it only biography, but rather both, which provides a unique framework for this most complex of men and artists. 

And there is a chapter contained within that I simply had to comment on here. It centers around Blake's use of symbolism and how best to interpret it. I should also mention I recently finished my third read of La Belle Sauvage - this time with my British edition - and thoroughly took notes throughout for my eventual scholarly book on the two trilogies. At any rate, I unearthed some striking similarities buried in it concerning Blakean symbolism, and I simply had to type up something about it now and tie it all together. 

If for no other reason than it seemed like a Republic of Heaven kind of thing to do. 

"How Should We Understand Blake's Symbols" is the second chapter in Eternity's Sunrise, and one of the first topics of discussion is understandably vision. Of course, vision is critical to any discussion of Blake. After all, he was the one who famously said his eye was akin to a window - "I look through it and not with it."

And of course, he himself was a visionary, and not just metaphorically speaking. 

From a young age, Blake saw proper visions, which informed and inspired his art throughout his life. Damrosch specifically likened it to eidectic vision, "thought to be common in children and often persisting in artistic adults." So it was not a case of muddled hallucinations, but rather of augmenting natural sight with imagination, of again not just seeing "with" the eye but "through" the eye. Eidectic vision often brings with it incredible clarity and sharpness of experience, as was certainly the case here. 

When once commissioned by a conventional clergyman to create an equally conventional drawing, Blake followed his inspiration as usual and imbued it with his own unique visionary style. When the gentleman criticized his work as having no basis in reality, Blake famously replied in a letter - 

I know that this world is a world of imagination and vision. I see everything I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser, a guinea is more beautiful than the Sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is to the eyes of others only a green things that stands in the way. 

So this remarkable insight clearly pertains more to the quality of vision in the here and now, as opposed to another reality or dimension altogether. 

Though I didn't catch it during the first couple of reads, Pullman neatly illustrates this in the character of Malcolm Polstead. The eleven-year-old hero of La Belle Sauvage, Malcolm lives and works with his parents at the Trout Inn, right beside the Thames and only miles from Oxford. He is a very likeable protagonist, affable and honest, bright and brave. He loves his daemon Asta, as well as his canoe, which gave the novel its name. 

Most importantly here though, Malcolm experiences migraine auras throughout the story, a peculiar phenomenon that often involves little actual headache, but rather a hazy ring or sparkle of white lights floating in one's vision. Curiously, the first time he has such floaters in his field of vision, Asta cannot see it directly, despite the profound human/daemon bond. They talk about whether it is inside or outside them, and argue over whether or not it means anything. 

The question of meaning is important here, as is the fact that Malcolm later misinterprets it when an adult tells him it's a "migraine aura." Being young, he mishears it as a "migraine aurora." Not only does this obviously tie-in with the Northern Lights novel, but also with William Blake, and his assured proclamation that "As a man is, so he sees." 

When researching the real arctic Aurora, Asta reads aloud a passage describing it - "a luminous celestial phenomenon of anbaric character seen in the Polar regions, with a tremulous motion and streamers of light." Malcolm is thrilled with his continued misunderstanding, insisting "It's the northern lights, in my head ... whatever causes the northern lights causes the spangled ring, I bet!"

While Asta is more skeptical, Malcolm remains convinced the luminous aura he sees during a migraine is mysteriously yet intimately linked to the electric lights over the North Pole. Pullman writes that it endows him with "a feeling of immense privilege and even awe." This linking of the great to the small, the macrocosm to the microcosm, is positively Blakean, particularly in a poem like "Auguries of Innocence." 

I feel compelled to add that such a congress between the mind of man and the soul of the cosmos is also a veritable tide of philosophy overflowing the banks of Romanticism as a whole, from Wordsworth to Keats. Imagined or no, it is a steady spring of inspiration and understanding in their poetry, just as it is with Malcolm. Certainly it is no mistake that his older mentor and confidante Hannah Relf later describes the young boy as "intensely romantic." 

During the final act of the novel, a great flood has literally overturned life as Malcolm knows it, and he finds himself adrift in his canoe with the strong yet sullen kitchen-girl Alice, as well as a baby named Lyra. The self-appointed guardian of the infant, Malcolm at one point has an unexpected vision of his "spangled ring" again. Soaked, afraid, and exhausted, he nonetheless sees the familiar "shimmering, flickering spot of light" hovering in front of the canoe, until it grows larger and fills his entire field of vision. 

But far from undermining his determination, he practically greets the aura like an old friend, and it suffuses him with a "calm oceanic feeling." He thinks it is special and unique to him, again invoking his not-so-latent Romanticism - "it was telling him he was still part of the great order of things, and that that could never change." 

This simple interaction creates some wonderful passages, and again lyrically brings home a central tenet of the Republic of Heaven. Namely, that even in a world absent of traditional religious belief and assurance we as human beings have to feel an integral bond with life and the world. Part of meaningfulness, Pullman unhesitatingly states in Daemon Voices, "comes from seeing that we have a connection with nature and the universe around us." 

While so largely deficient in modern life, this connection nonetheless finds a profound and important home in His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust alike, most deeply through the ever-expanding metaphor of Dust. It will be interesting to see the development and eventual conclusion to Malcolm's personal ringed aurora in the final book, and what meaning can be ultimately wrung out of it. 

As noted before, Damrosch in Eternity's Sunrise writes how even when Blake was commissioned to make illustrations for other poets, he didn't hesitate to incorporate his own iconography around the text, and make it his own. Much like with Malcolm's adopted meaning for his spangled aura, Damrosch explains why - "[Blake] considered it entirely appropriate to import his personal symbols in this way, for he saw them as reflecting the reality we all inhabit." 

In other words, that "visionary gleam" so prevalent among the poetic-minded - be they an eighteenth century artist in our world or an eleven-year-old boy navigating a deadly flood in another one - forges that ever-so-necessary conduit between conventional reality and one that is infinitely deeper and richer. One that reflects "the reality we all inhabit," if we could only open up to it.  

And when we encounter said reality, that is when we are not simply seeing "with" the eye, but also "through" it and beyond it, as Blake so obviously did in some of his most famous lines - 

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

 

Stay Dusty My Friends 

#PhilipPullman   #WilliamBlake  #TheBookOfDust  #EternitysSunrise 

My Thoughts on the Evening with Philip Pullman Event

 

As noted last month, there was a special event held yesterday in celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Northern Lights, the first and arguably most famous book in the His Dark Materials trilogy. 

While I don't regret buying an online ticket to said event, all in all it was a little underwhelming. 

First off, simply by virtue of the fact that it had to be held via Zoom rather than at a grand hall somewhere. The big launch for The Secret Commonwealth comes to mind, courtesy of Waterstones just last year. That was great, and I have watched it several times on YouTube. 

Second off, the interview didn't involve only Pullman, but rather several other people, with various cast members from the HBO series reading book passages throughout. 

Not to be disagreeable, but the interview with Jane Tranter was the least interesting. She is the executive producer of the abovementioned series, and I remain rather unimpressed with the whole endeavor. Again, the goal of the series was to be as faithful to the books as possible thanks to the long form television provides, but it hasn't really turned out that way in my opinion. 

During the interview, Tranter repeatedly confused The Subtle Knife with The Amber Spyglass, as well as calling characters wrong names, such as "Joe Parry" rather than "John Parry." Not the most inspiring. More on that later, but flaws aside, I still prefer the look and tone and overall feel and aesthetics of the film. 

Pullman was charitable about the work, as opposed to falling back on his usual lines about a book remaining whole and intact on the shelf, regardless of the amount of adaptations and mediums it is passed through. He usually talks around such things, though he stated this time he finds the series "wonderful" and has "complete faith" in the producers. So more than me, though honestly it seems he is more removed from adaptations of his work than perhaps his readers. 

One of the most intriguing things I did learn however was that he had no idea Will Parry was going to be in the trilogy at all before The Subtle Knife, and thus was supportive of his inclusion in the first series. Considering Will's importance to the story, that was pretty intriguing.

I personally am not convinced of that addition to the series storyline at all, nor of Will's casting in general. As for Lyra, it seems to me Dafne Keen would be more suited to play the older Lyra in The Secret Commonwealth. It is a darker novel, and the HBO team seems insistent on making HIs Dark Materials that way as well, regardless of whether or not it fits the story. I suppose my main issue with it is just that the energy that abounds on every page and is embedded in every paragraph of Northern Lights was simply missing from the first series. In my opinion, anyway. 

So that was not a highlight of the event for me. 

However, I did enjoy the other two guests. One was Chris Wormell, who did the work on the illustrated edition of Northern Lights. This only recently debuted in England, and I can't find a copy here. However, it is available on Amazon UK, and I'm sure it is well worth the price. I am very pleased to know it is getting the illustrated treatment so popular among middle reader and young adult books these days. I truly hope the entire trilogy will follow as the anniversaries continue. 

Chris seemed genuinely honored to be working on the project, and excited about it as well. Apparently, the lockdown worked in his favor, as he was able to devote months to nothing but existing in the Pullmanverse. So if you have the means to do so, you should probably pick up a copy!

The next guest and the one I found to be the most enjoyable besides Pullman was a gentleman I've heard about for some time, but never actually seen. This would be David Fickling, who has been Pullman's editor and advisor for decades. Fickling was one of the first people to ever read Northern Lights in its entirety, if not the very first. 

His enthusiasm for Pullman's writing was palpable, as he was clearly overwhelmed to find himself a collaborator with one of the world's greatest storytellers. It was so nice to get to see him in person - or as in person as a Zoom interview allows - and he seemed a charming, passionate, knowledgeable, and committed individual. 

Still, he did create the "Fred Must Die Rule," regarding a particular character back in the Sally Lockhart days, Pullman's first foray into young adult Victorian thrillers. While I can't say his decision was wrong, I did love that character! Anyway, Fickling also went on to say he believes The Book of Dust trilogy is one of the most important works of fiction cataloging the human condition today, and I really can't argue with that at all. It is pretty extraordinary, regardless of whether or not it is always recognized as such.

As for the rest of it, Pullman went on to talk about other things, some I was familiar with and some I wasn't. I know due to his age and his health, along with the pandemic and the general state of things, he is having a more difficult time writing the last book in the new trilogy than usual. His "Three Pages a Day Rule" which has been in place since he's been writing has been broken of late, with his output sometimes drifting closer to just one or two pages a day. 

The fact that interviewers keep asking him about how the various crisis' of the real world are intruding on his fiction does give me the slightest moment of pauses. I personally feel art is always going to trump politics, the former perpetually outlasting the latter. Just as Shelley so eloquently put it in Ozymandias, a poem which Pullman admires. 

While it is admirable that Pullman is so engaged with the "real" world - that is after all where we have to build the Republic of Heaven - I can't help but feel politics aren't good or healthy for anyone these days. Of course, this is the week of the latest U.S. presidential election. Politics not only reduce everything to its lowest common denominator - and do so relentlessly - but the news surrounding them only has a tendency to bombard people with irrelevant mountains of depressing information that they simply can't do anything about. 

After he works everyday, Pullman admits to watching said news, and he is also a devotee of Twitter. I personally have abandoned Facebook this year, and mainly signed on to Instagram just to look at the pictures. I just hope social media and world events haven't dampened his usual reserves of near endless inspiration and imagination. Our world may not continue to inevitably turn, but that doesn't mean Lyra's can't fare at least a little better. 

(Not to mention, one of the rare Pullman narrative missteps had to be in the final act of The Tiger in the Well. It was also the end of a trilogy, and it got unnecessarily political and that clumsily tripped up the story being told. So that would be best avoided, in my view.)

I suppose my point is that if any writing is going to save the world or at least nobly sculpt away at the foundations of our Republic, it's going to be literature and poetry, not endlessly circular tweets and Facebook posts. 

Pullman also ended the event by remarking it took him about two years to write Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife, and almost three to complete The Amber Spyglass, which is by far the longest of that trilogy. Obviously The Secret Commonwealth took things to a whole new level, pushing almost 700 pages. 

The final unnamed chapter may be a bit shorter, but he has remarked it will also be long. He is currently a year into it, and predictably the finishing line is far off. As usual, he knows vaguely what the ending looks like, but not all the adventures along the way. 

I have great faith, and we all know he is a treasure to great to lose anytime soon. He remains a source of profound inspiration to me. I wish him absolutely the best on all fronts, and hope he takes all the time he needs, and that particles of Dust find their way to his writing desk every morning. 

But the fact remains that The Book of Dust conclusion will be at least a  couple of years away, and my own book on the two trilogies even longer than that. So yes, we have quite a wait ahead of us but, after all, patience is a Republic of Heaven virtue ... 

Stay Dusty My Friends 

#PhilipPullman #BuildingTheRepublic #HisDarkMaterials #TheBookOfDust

My Jordan Library: Subtle Scores

 

So yet another minor addition to my Jordan Library. Yes, I not only chase books, I sometimes successfully catch them. 

This is the tenth anniversary deluxe edition of The Subtle Knife. Like with most of the British editions I obtained, this was also courtesy of Abe Books, who I have to say are incredibly fast and competent, even in these our troubled times. The Amber Spyglass tenth anniversary copy remains elusive, except for rather high prices. 

This is a very nice hardcover book, which looks very complimentary beside The Golden Compass tenth anniversary copy. I believed I originally acquired that one at Borders Books, but the other two somehow slipped me by. Despite being a bookseller at the time, with an employee discount. At any rate, this edition is in good condition, with no nicks or scratches, missing pages, or writing in the margins. It of course contains the complete original American text, and sits very smoothly and comfortably in the hand. 

This version of The Subtle Knife also contains extra information at the back, mainly in the form of mysterious letters that Lord Asriel allegedly donated to Jordan College Library at some point. They belonged to Stanislaus Grumman, and are a charming little compilation of letters and maps and drawings that offer additional peaks into the world of His Dark Materials. 

These documents chronicle bits and pieces of information regarding exploration, and once again provide the feeling that so much in the Pullmanverse is seeping out around the edges - as if one actually peered through the window of the novels, they would in fact see a fully functioning, three-dimensional landscape existing independently. 

One can find smudged in-universe letters and such outlining how Grumman - who we know is actually John Parry - trekking about in Lyra's parallel world. We are treated to snippets of his introductions to everything from witch clans to shamans to Lord Asriel to his own daemon. And of course, the ever important bloodmoss with all its magical medicinal purposes.

I highly recommend picking these anniversary versions up if one has the opportunity, and I would also like to add that I finally found my long lost Golden Compass bookmark that I secured after the release of the movie! It is currently safe and buried in the pages of the Golden Compass graphic novel I bought a few weeks ago. 

So double win this week. 

Stay Dusty My Friends

#PhilipPullman #HisDarkMaterials #TheSubtleKnife #SpecialEdition