by Jules Dixon

Created on: September 22, 2008

From "Letters to Orion; Allegory of a Girl"

I finished the Phillip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials, with The Amber Spyglass three days ago. I'm still thinking. I suppose this is why these books' popularity are/were so controversial.

It isn't quite like reading about Bilbo Baggins, or Frodo, and their wizard friend Gandalf. It isn't quite like reading Richard Adams' Watership Down either. Although I believe that both of these books had a great amount of the same thinking involved in their plot development. Tolkien was, of course, rebellious of his own mortality. And Richard Adams rebellious against anything human, but not humanity.

I think.... I believe I'm still in awe of this children's writer however, and I haven't yet decided whether these books are profound, or religious propaganda. Or just imagination. I know I felt this way when I was sixteen and read Redfield's Celestine Prophecy. Such a jolt to a half-baked, churched-out teenager. But this is different. I feel a small bit of disappointment at Pullman's story. For such an adventure, I shouldn't have had to face my spiritual dilemmas. By all means one should be reminded of love, loss, thrill, anticipation, mystery, misery, even sex, in a grand adventure. But my spiritual dilemmas in this story, and in this situation, were arresting for me. Where would our world be without spirituality?, is my most pressing thought. Does spirituality equal morality? I wonder at what age I'll introduce this book to my daughter, for I surely, eventually will.

Perhaps thirty.

And then, I wonder at what age a reader would be ready for this type of critical thinking. A quarter lifetime, possibly. But twelve? Why wouldn't the author have used symbolism instead of direct relation for a children's book? I want to think that my daughters heroin's are fighting against an authority and fighting for the freedom of their own free will, but not THE authority - whatever It may be from one person to another.

If I have been distant these last three weeks, my reading habits are why. Once I've begun a book, it isn't easy to put down. Once I began this trilogy, I couldn't stop until all three books were read - and now, until all three have been imbibed.

But absorption is slow and easy going. At times I literally felt Pullman's urge to rebel morality. And his heroin's pull to pubescence.

Pause.

Alas, there are so many things I would have done differently in telling this tale.

Though I suppose that this is why we read, isn't it? To learn, and to escape; and then just to think. My wish, however, is that someone would have warned me that with this escape, I'd also have to face a moral crossroads. Even if it was simply a quiet, reflective one.

Learn more about this author, Jules Dixon.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.