Into This Wild Abyss (Of Speculation)

 

While speculation on works of fiction is rarely my default setting, some talks and walks online and off have nonetheless teased me into exactly that. Specifically, various thoughts and ideas have taken root and grown regarding the end to the most famous and epic of Philip Pullman's stories. 

With the writing slowly but steadily progressing, Pullmanites still wait with baited breath concerning the final - and as of yet, unnamed - novel in The Book of Dust trilogy. 

After reading and partaking in some online discussions concerning the final story's conclusion, as noted I started to do what I seldom gravitate toward, which is speculate on how events may turn out. Normally, I am most content to allow other writer's narratives to remain their own, and let them walk unfettered in the undiscovered countries of their own creativity. 

Nonetheless, after delving into Daemon Voices yet again - that seminal and ever-important collection of essays and lectures on writing and storytelling - patterns rather relentlessly started to form. This exercise isn't an attempt to tease out specific plot elements, because I have no idea and don't really want to know what will definitively happen. Rather, I'm just inching around the general shape and form of the conclusion, not specific events or even structure so much as theme. 

This third novel will, after all, be one of Philip Pullman's last definitive statements on the ideas and inspirations that have been the flint sparking his indelible imagination since he first fell in love with poetry as a fifteen or sixteen year old. It will also finally wrap up his most beloved body of work which he started writing far back in the nineties. He has hinted around composing his memoirs next, which I would kill - or at least seriously maim - to read. But as far as Lyra and Pantalamion and their world of Dust and daemons, this is it. 

So what might be some of the final things Pullman may say about all those themes so near-and-dear to his heart - themes such as art, love, meaning, imagination, creativity, consciousness, education, the physical world and its connection to the physical universe, etc.? As much as I try to stay current on any articles or interviews Pullman is involved with, fortunately for the purposes of this post we have a relative wellspring of his personal thoughts on all of these topics, the aforementioned Daemon Voices. It is such a vital source for me on writing and narrative I recently ordered the paperback version, as my hardcover is already fraying around the edges. 

Oh, and perhaps needless to say, spoilers ahead all the way up to the final book thus far, The Secret Commonwealth. 

To begin with, in his essay "The Writing of Stories," Pullman references a book by both an English professor and cognitive scientist, and is titled The Literary Mind. Namely, it is about stories, specifically "how we recognize, predict, relate our experiences to them, and so on." He describes them as "image schemas," and Pullman realized one in His Dark Materials, when he was about halfway through writing it. A repeating pattern unfolded, one "in which two things that are so closely bound together that they functioned as one are split apart, and function from then on as two." 

For a lot of us, this splitting apart is most vividly reflected in the parting of Lyra and Will at the end of The Amber Spyglass. Pullman chronicles the pattern throughout though, noting that the "most dramatic" for many early readers of the series was learning the children being kidnapped by the Oblation Board were being brutally separated from their daemons. He admits this is meant to be shocking, "by establishing early on the tightness, the complete unity, of the daemon-body pair," to the point that it's practically inconceivable that this most primal of unions should be broken. 

This necessitates an essay to work through, but I will first suggest that the "image schema" that will play out in the third book will be the inverse. As His Dark Materials (and narrative fault lines following into the chronological follow-up The Secret Commonwealth) was often about things being split apart, perhaps the movement in the final crescendo here will be things that are split apart coming back together. 

Narratively and thematically the only other big creative possibility I can really see is that elements already apart and alienated become even more so, erupting in what basically amounts to a great gulf or divide, and the story remains split down the middle. Pretty depressing, and also not very republican in the Republic of Heaven sense. 

Indeed, I personally would add - despite the heartbreaking ending for our two protagonist which stole many tears from me - that the first trilogy was a very real triumph for life and the universe at large. After all, the kingdom did fall, opening up the possibility of the republic, and reality was all but regenerated. 

K6illing the Imposter God examines this very well, as I recall. 

And most importantly for our purposes here, this was made possible by seemingly disparate or even alien entities ultimately being profoundly one. Things that were explicitly two were actually implicitly one, as discovered most dramatically by Mary Malone concerning the true nature of Dust. Specifically the union of Dust and the universe, and the irrevocable bond between consciousness and matter, and even spirit and flesh. 

This is stated directly by the rebel angels or "shadow particles" in The Subtle Knife ("Matter and spirit are one"), and perfectly falls in line with Pullman's own philosophy as established in this wonderful interview. 

Following this thematic thread then, I might also posit that not only will Lyra and Pan be reunited after their horrible existential parting of the ways in The Secret Commonwealth, but that they will in fact not die in the final book. 

Quite naturally, this possibility has been a considerable source of grim debate in the online communities dedicated to the books. After all, this is said to be the last novel set in this alternate world, and I see no reason to doubt that this is so. I know The Book of Dust trilogy was not planned in the strictest sense either, but to be honest, Pullman is in his seventies, and has already expressed a desire to write other things. There is an interview of particular interest here, as he notes he will be finishing Lyra's story, "so I can do other things, and she can too." 

This rather implies that Lyra will continue to live on after the final pages are set to type, as Pullman is sympathetic to the idea that characters in some way transcend the recorded narratives they're in. But far more important here is those "image schemas," and the patterns and stories he'd been influenced by. 

Even in a negative way. 

For instance, most astute readers know of Pullman's argumentative relationship with C.S. Lewis' classic fantasy, The Chronicles of Narnia. Unlike with Tolkien, I sometimes feel Pullman and Lewis might have found some common ground to stand on. Still, there is no denying the former's serious objections to some of the things in Narnia. In the Daemon Voices essay "The Republic of Heaven," he praises the books only as "an invaluable guide to what is wrong and cruel and selfish." 

I must admit, I have a nostalgic soft spot for Narnia, and believe them to be deeper and more meaningful than often assumed. For instance, just the fact that there's no concept or reality of original sin poisoning that particular fantasy world is interesting and admirable. However, any admiration only extends until somewhere around halfway through The Final Battle, the last novel in the series. It is here that Pullman has his biggest problems as well, and here that it all potentially dovetails into the story pattern of his own narrative finale. 

Narnia spoiler alert, but the series ends with most of the children being killed in a railway accident. As for Narnia itself, the fantasy world is purged and destroyed, and the god-like Aslan leads everyone into an uber-super-duper Neoplatonic Narnia. All this is treated as a deliriously happy conclusion, as the old Narnia the characters and readers alike had grown to love was revealed to be only a "shadow," a poor xeroxed copy of the eternal, uber-super-duper Narnia. 

Pullman concludes this is poisonous, pernicious Platonic trash, and I rather profoundly agree. Because the message is clear. The real world we live and die in is ultimately not only transitory but irrelevant, and should finally be met with disdain in the heavenly light of an (honestly dull and boring seeming) afterlife. 

"This world is where the things are that matter," Pullman contrasts in his own essay. Life-after-death is never going to be as important to him as life-during-life. Not to be found in an abstract, disembodied realm somewhere else, the Republic of Heaven is by comparison here and now, nowhere and nowhen else. So this is his biggest complaint regarding the end Lewis' characters meet, and how it runs totally counter to his own image schema and narrative trajectory. 

Pullman reasonably believes that the children in the Narnia chronicles who "have passed through all these adventures and presumably learned great lessons from them [should] be free to live and grow up in the world ... and use what they'd learned for the benefit of others. If you're wiser and stronger as the result of your experiences, then do something useful with that strength and wisdom - make the world a bit better."

That is a long quote but very important here. Most immediately, it clearly establishes the author's repugnance to killing a main character, especially early in their life, never allowing them to implement all the lessons they had such a hard time learning, and then treating the whole thing as a grand holiday. Particularly in books either about children or read by lots of children. 

Pullman's messages are about life and living, and the rest of this essay will in no small part be about unpacking this. 

Along those lines, Pullman has also rather famously (or infamously) dismissed religion as the only or even the best basis for morality, and often subscribes art and literature that pivotal role. In the essay "Talents and Virtues" in Daemon Voices, he turns to a favorite topic of his, namely the inscription on the tomb of a woman once known as Sophia Goddard. It has a curious line Pullman often quotes, one describing the theater as the "great School of Morals."

Refusing to take such a statement ironically, he cites the theater as once such "a place to which we might go and find instruction or enlightenment about matters of morality." He then goes on to trace the examination of morality in literature as well, quoting and noting examples from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens. This conversation continues in the essay "The Republic of Heaven." 

Now of course, HDM is littered with acts of high moral virtue. Lyra's profound devotion to her friend Roger comes to mind. As does Lee Scorseby's sacrifice and his own selfless love of Lyra, and Will Parry's untiring devotion to his mentally ill mother. Parental responsibility and compassion even get the better of Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter at the end. 

On a lesser though still important scale, I also think of something like Malcolm Polstead's refusal to cry in La Belle Sauvage because it might upset baby Lyra and he needed to be strong for her - despite being wet, cold, hungry, and exhausted - as an exemplar of this attitude. 

But perhaps the biggest, most substantial moral charge in the first trilogy and eventually the saga as a whole lies in the establishment of the Republic of Heaven. Indeed, these are the very blocks that lay the foundation of this entire blog. And this is not merely a simple list of rules and regulations for how to behave in certain situations one may find themselves in. To be honest, such a stale roster of morals would not inspire me in the least. 

Rather, Pullman's own moral stance rather profoundly takes into account a very real connection to life and the universe, providing a bit of cosmic scaffolding as opposed to a mere social system. This is set out by the leader of the rebel angels, Xaphania, at the end of The Amber Spyglass. It revolves around twin metaphors, each of which grow and strengthen the other. 

The first is of course the much mentioned Republic of Heaven. The second is the Dust with a capital "D." At the beginning of HDM, the mysterious particles of matter were thought to be a manifestation of original sin by the authoritarian Magisterium. By the end, however, it is recognized to be the rich, fertile substance that animates the universe and brings it to life with energy and inspiration. As such, the continuous renewal and regeneration of it by all the characters, most directly Lyra and Will, is the most serious and sincere commandment of the piece. 

"Dust is not a constant. There's not a fixed quantity that has always been the same," Xaphania explains to them, adding, "Conscious beings make Dust - they renew it all the time, by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on." 

What strikes me so deeply about all this is the image of Dust - as metaphor. This is not simply imploring someone to "be good." As human beings, we need images and symbols, as well as the stories that breathe life into them. So in one fell swoop, readers and characters alike are presented with a metaphor that moves them from being subservient children to a celestial monarch to co-creators of their own universe. 

The more love and wisdom and understanding, the more minds that are "open and free and curious," the more Dust is renewed, the more life is worth living. 

So not only will Lyra have to live, she will have to live well and even inspire others. To this, obviously she must reunite with Pan. On some level, it may be a uniting with characters such as Malcolm as well. But the primary mechanism of her moral charge will be the continued generation of Dust as well as using it to further the building of the Republic of Heaven, thus tying all the threads together as well as bringing together many things that have been previously split apart. 

As many Pullmanites know, he sees a kind of "narrative sprite" as the force ultimately guiding the story, one not necessarily synonymous with him as the author. Still, at least a tone or feeling can be tracked through his talks and ideas regarding the potential finale, and he clearly feels characters should grow and learn and contribute to their worlds in the end. 

Pullman also states at the end of The Amber Spyglass that he "reads like a butterfly" and "writes like a bee." He cites three principal sources that are the beating heart of HDM - the poetry of William Blake, John Milton's "Paradise Lost," and a remarkable and remarkably short essay by Heinrich von Kleist. It is the last of the three that I believe points the most direct finger toward a possible TBOD conclusion. 

Morally (and spiritually) speaking. 

In yet another essay in Daemon Voices, Pullman recounts first reading this work by Kleist, which was titled "On the Marionette Theater." Most of it takes the form of a brief discussion between two men, about "puppets, and about grace, and about consciousness."  Specifically the particular kind of human consciousness that develops such an acute, hypersensitive edge usually around adolescence. 

In other words, self-consciousness, where the thinking and feeling human being is dangled precariously on a high wire, suspended between the mindless grace of the marionette, and the endless mind of the god. Despite the enormous mental and intellectual gifts of self-consciousness, it also trends toward a tendency that resembles a snake eating its own tail. Which seems to be the sort of depressive dilemma Lyra is fighting through in The Secret Commonwealth. 

Kleist very insightfully runs this primary human conflict through numerous lenses, including things like art and dance. The men in the essay talk of a boy, one with a very easy and natural grace who one day becomes awkwardly and self-consciously aware of that grace and instantly loses it. Kleist compares this effortless grace to marionettes in a marketplace and also to the Fall of Adam and Eve and their subsequent expulsion from Paradise. 

In correlation to his own work, Pullman draws a certain parallel to Lyra and her initial effortless grace while reading the mystical and mysterious alethiometer. By the end of HDM, she has lost this natural ability with the coming of her own adolescence and maturity. She is cut adrift, like the young man who could never recapture his art-like, statuesque pose, and Adam and Eve, who were forced to abandon their childlike innocence in exchange for hard-won experience. 

In his own essay, Pullman agrees with Kleist when he says we can't regain innocence, any more than we can stroll back into Eden. In either case, an angel with a flaming sword guards the way. "The only way is forward," Pullman insists, "through life, deep into life, deep into the difficulties and the compromises and the betrayals and the disappointments that we inevitably encounter." 

Not only does this seem like the main thrust of The Secret Commonwealth, this is in many ways the mission statement of the whole affair - to not only live and brave the passage through life, but with the understanding that "Paradise" can potentially be regained by winding all the way around the world, and quietly sneaking in the back door. 

Lyra is told at the end of The Amber Spyglass that after considerable effort and study, she will not simply reclaim her natural grace with the alethiometer, but her reading of it "will be better, deeper, truer, more aware, and in every way richer" than when she was simply an intuitive child. Treading back to the original image schema, hopefully things will be wedded together again, whether it be innocence and experience, spirituality and materialism, intellect and imagination,, or  rationality and the secret commonwealth. 

Pullman closes his own essay on Kleist by saying this is not only the hope for Lyra, but for all human beings - "the hope that we can learn something true, and pass it on." Which I see as potentially very revealing about the third novel in TBOD. 

In an interview with Nicholas Tucker a few years ago when he was just starting work on the new trilogy, Pullman addressed the original ending of HDM, which left us all crying over Lyra and Will. Nonetheless, he argues "Books that are popular and read and talked about usually have endings that actually satisfy in a moral sense whether they are happy or not." 

So clearly a case is building here. It's that "moral sense" that a great deal of this hypothesis hinges on. And maybe it's too optimistic for the ultimate conclusion, but I do feel Lyra will make a real difference in her world, Magisterium be damned. Still, The Secret Commonwealth was arguably the darkest book in the series, and Pullman himself has admitted he doesn't know how much things will "lighten up" at the end. 

But in the interest of (finally) bringing it all together, I would like to posit a potential revitalizing or regeneration to Lyra and Pan's story. If his narrative sprite holds true, it just seems odd to me that the two trilogies would end in defeat or despair. Again, it's not a really republican attitude to take, as outlined in this post. Not to mention - yet again - that it's inevitably going to be one of Pullman's last definitive statements on inspiration and imagination and the like. 

As for how this positive potential might be realized or achieved, it seems to me Lyra's evolution as a character might just be to bear witness to this new, Dust-laden way of seeing the world. Or all of them, in fact. And not just bear witness, but actively express or communicate in some way, reversing the trajectory of the Narnia stories, for instance. 

At the beginning of it all in Northern Lights, it is hinted that Lyra will eventually know more about Dust "than anyone in the world." One assumes this will play out in the final book in particular, as well as its role as the animating force woven throughout the multiverse. Again, this will consequently be the building blocks of the Republic of Heaven, the kind of Highest Good in the series. 

But as Pullman argues, merely "knowing" about something will not be enough. Rather that manifests "By gaining wisdom and passing it on." 

Keep in mind, Lyra has been a consummate talker likewise since Northern Lights. In many ways, she talked her way through the first book, from Oxford to London to Bolvangar to Svalbard. One of the few times her tongue fails her is in the world of the dead in The Amber Spyglass, where the harpies insist on hearing true stories about people's lives. 

Pullman has noted that this is HDM's literary transition from fantasy to realism. But I'll also suggest that this is Lyra's transition as well. Namely, from a liar who merely spins tall tales, to a genuine storyteller who communicates real and valuable truths.

As the first trilogy draws to a close, Lyra has returned from her adventures and is having a conversation with the Master of Jordan College and Dame Hannah Relf. She remarks that she used to tell lies and half-truths to make her way through the world, but swears what she's going to tell them then is real. 

"I promise to tell the truth," she insists, "if you promise to believe it." 

This pattern is tracing out another kind of image schema, written decades ago or not. Still, Pullman is marking his heroine out as a communicator, a truth-bearer of sorts. And keep in mind his own status as, and veneration of, the role of writer. 

So how to tie this all up, at least with a small ribbon of potentiality? We know Pullman highly values the gaining of wisdom and knowledge, and the very high moral good of inspiring others and passing along what you've learned. We also know he is a veritable expert in writing, talking, and communicating, all of which is achieved with words and language. 

While we haven't directly witnessed Lyra writing much of anything, we have seen her become a voracious reader at St. Sophia's College, as well as sharpening and developing a very curious intellect. Curiosity is a prime virtue in the Republic, even though it may be sidetracked with books like The Hyperchorasmians or The Constant Deceiver. Picking up her own pen in the future may not be so far fetched. 

Taking all of this into account, my main and final point of speculation is that The Book of Dust trilogy may end with a very literal Book of Dust. Not one retelling events in the story of course, but rather one conveying and communicating all the insight, meaning, wisdom, beauty, and awareness such an entity as Dust gives birth to. 

And who better to write it than Lyra Silvertongue herself, the young girl who will eventually know more about it and quite possibly understand it on a level few people in any of the worlds ever have, and who has been specifically charged to bring about the highest state of being and good around, namely the Republic of Heaven? 

So is that Lyra's final destiny, to become the patron saint of Dust, to spread the good word of the Republic, by writing inspired books in the manner of her very author who sat down and expressed his own views of life and the universe? Thoughts? Comments? No one has read this far down have they .... 

 

Stay Dusty My Friends 

#PhilipPullman   #HisDarkMaterials  #TheBookOfDust  #BuildingTheRepublic