His Dark Materials

As far as I can tell, the field of ‘literary catechism’ seems almost entirely dominated by Christians. It is, of course, a primarily Christian tradition—at least in the West—but, given the secularization of Western society, it seems that someone would have found out by now how quickly children and readers can learn a system of values from a well-told story.

Philip Pullman stands out as a ‘catechist’ of the secular, atheistic literary tradition and he does so intentionally. His best known work, His Dark Materials, is an entire world—actually, an infinite number of worlds—saturated with his secular humanist beliefs. One cannot help but compare his effort to The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia. In fact, critics seem unable to avoid making the comparison. It is amazing how ready society seems for an author who can achieve an epic of this magnitude without an underlying Christian faith. William Waldegrave of the Daily Telegraph seems to speak for the masses when he writes, ‘Move over Tolkien and CS Lewis. Philip Pullman has completed his extraordinary cosmological tour de force.’

Of course, whether or not Pullman’s attempt is successful is another question. As a literary scholar, I think His Dark Materials leaves a great deal to be desired. His characters are internally inconsistent. His plot has gaping holes, questions unanswered at the end of the almost six-hundred-page third installment. The language is so ‘original’ as to be contrived. But how the story is told is not really important within Pullman’s books. He has, I must concede, outlined a compelling and riveting plot.

The trilogy centers around a little orphaned girl named Lyra who lives at Jordon College, Oxford, in a dimension very similar to our own. She soon finds out that she is not actually an orphan, but the illegitimate daughter of two of the most charismatic people in that world—Lord Asriel, a powerful scientist, and Mrs Coulter, a paragon femme fatale and Church official. Lyra finds out about a heretical substance called ‘dust’ that emanates from every adult human being with which she communicates using her altheiometer, the titular golden compass. The church wants to destroy it, but Lyra decides it must be good and that she must save it. On her quest, she finds a boy from our dimension named Will who comes into possession of a knife that can cut through worlds. In the climax, the pair journey to the underworld to free the spirits of the dead from their overlords placed there by a tyrannical angel playing the part of God. Once they are free, the spirits dissolve and rejoin the dust. In the end, Lyra and Will choose to return to their own dimensions to encourage creativity and learning so that more dust can be produced.

Dust is the underlying myth of the His Dark Materials universe. It arises from, and contributes to, human consciousness and imagination. It is man’s consciousness that gives the universe its purpose—to preserve that consciousness. It is actually dust, or the idea it represents, that is the basis for Pullman’s defense of atheism. I recently attended a dialogue between Philip Pullman and the pastor of Saint Mary the Virgin Anglican Church in Oxford entitled Writing, Myth, and Religion in which he explained these beliefs.

Pullman’s defense of atheism is actually an ethical one deeply rooted in the literary philosophies of William Blake and John Milton. Paradise Lost, and indeed the story of the Fall of Man, is a story of the end of innocence and the coming to experience. According to Pullman, ‘the closer we come to humanity, the more self-conscious we are, the less grace we have.’ Children have a kind of ‘unconscious grace’ which they lose during adolescents. The process of becoming human as an adult is to develop a kind of ‘conscious grace,’ within the story, the faculty to produce dust.

Religion is bad precisely, Pullman asserts, because is discourages the development of conscious grace. The ideas of sin and repentance encourage self-doubt and repression that inhibit our ability to be human. Dependence on a God-figure suppresses our need to think and feel for ourselves. The story of the Fall is the prime example—man is cast out of the garden for choosing knowledge. No God would want his creation to be ignorant or child-like.

As a Christian, I clearly disagree with Pullman’s assertions about the effects of belief. But I don’t think they may his story value-less. The books have literary merit and worth, though probably exaggerated by overzealous secular critics. But what impressed me the most about Philip Pullman is that he really does understand the way fiction affects people. He understands that the sense of right and wrong comes from watching others, but also from characters we admire in fiction. He claims, rightly, that writers cannot avoid preaching sermons—it’s just that a well-told sermon is rarely resented and often effective. He has actually created a fairly internally-consistent cosmos without God and written it into a story that people will read and from which they will learn. That alone is a feat worth respecting.

The first part, known in the US as The Golden Compass, will be released on December 7. I know many Christian groups are outraged by it, but I’m not convinced there really understand why. A catechetical story can only go so far—it teaches, it does not convert. Perhaps Christians should accept the movie as an occasion for learning more about secular humanism. More likely, though, Christians who see the movie should remember that the great human consciousness Pullman goes through so much effort to praise and preserve is a gift from God that we should use to think, to create, and to love.

His Dark Materials
Suggested Age-Range: Confirmation-aged, adult
Look for: a defense of atheism to critique, a praise of human consciousness, charitable love
Be Wary of: a defense of atheism, sexual overtones, occasional language, violence--though not graphic
Availability: Still under copyright

The Mystery Stories of G. K. Chesterton

In most parts of the English-speaking and non-Catholic cultural world, if G. K. Chesterton is remembered at all, it is as a detective writer. This generalization is both correct and not. Chesterton is a great writer of mystery stories. The Man Who Was Thursday, The Man Who Knew Too Little, Manalive, and Father Brown are among the greatest tales of the genre ever told. What separates him from the rest of the Law and Order, CSI, or even Sherlock Holmes crowd is that his stories are primarily neither tales of the primacy of human wit nor, more importantly, ones which seek out and exaggerate the deepest evils of a man's soul the pessimistic reader can muster. Chesterton, the great optimist, writes not to entertain, but to convince--to make the reader see the world as it really is, but to accept that that world is beautiful nevertheless.

It is for this thematic reason that the contrast between two of Chesterton's most memorable detective characters, Horne Fisher from The Man Who Knew Too Much and Father Brown from the detective stories of the same name, is so striking. It seems difficult to believe both characters were created by the same man.

Father Brown is a bumbling, dumpy English priest. A great, French detective describes him thus: 'The little priest was so much the essence of those Eastern flats; he had a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; he had eyes as empty as the North Sea.' Time and again he is perceived this way, and time and again he surprises those around him--sometimes heads of state and captains of industry--with his powers of observation. It isn't just the small details that Father Brown notices. He is really aware of the way men think and act and this ability makes him a good detective. He doesn't always turn a culprit over to the police, sometimes successfully dislodging hardened criminals from a life in crime in way of which the modern penal system is entirely incapable. He is a champion of reason, sometimes providing simple explanations that fly in the face the fantastic theories of great skeptics who consider the priest's religion to be silly superstition. Despite surviving five volumes of solving often gruesome crimes, Father Brown keeps a twinkle in his eye and an optimism about man's capacity for good.

Horne Fisher first and solely appears in Chesterton's novel (really more of a book of related stories) called The Man Who Knew Too Much, published in 1922. Fisher, in contrast to Father Brown, is a wiry, aristocratic man, constantly looking bored. His friend, Howard March, described him as a man, 'who expressed the opinions of a pessimist in the language of a lounger.' He is irritable, sometimes to the point of grumpy. Like Father Brown, he solves mysteries by a real understanding of men--how they think and how they act. Unlike the priest, he says that ability leads him to 'know too much,' to be so aware of what is going on in his society and country, but completely impotent to change anything. He increasingly finds that to denounce one man, is to bring the downfall of another. To reveal the treachery of one fiend is to bring ruin upon the nation. Like Father Brown, he finds himself running in the circles of the most influential and powerful, but unlike Father Brown, he seems personally powerless to change them or the consequences of their actions. He is a profound pessimist of the most un-Chestertonian kind.

The difference between the two characters is, at first, baffling. It is tempting to suppose that Fisher, as the product of a Chesterton who had seen a world war and aged ten years since his creation of Father Brown, is simply the creation of a more knowing mind. But Chesterton was a far subtler man than that. Besides, he wrote Father Brown stories almost until the year of his death.

The two men are linked, and by more than a common understanding of mankind that makes them good detectives. Both men are, in the most literal sense, saints--the only two kinds of saints for the modern world. Father Brown is a saint because he chooses every action based on what is right and what is holy. To all appearances, he is a simpleton, but it is his simple, childlike, saintly faith that makes him what he is. He never rushes to denounce or condemn; he is even prepared to let a thief go free. Father Brown is ultimately concerned with the souls of every man he meets.

Horne Fisher is a saint for a different reason. Nothing about his behavior is particularly saintly. He doesn't seem to bear a great love for those around him. He never seems to try very hard to make much better. Primarily, he is lazy and pessimistic. But all of the choices he makes, all of the thoughts he harbors about justice and compassion for all men, lead up to a climax in which he distinguishes himself for every bit of the saint Father Brown is--only in a different way a reader will have to discover for himself. It is this climactic choice which makes Horne Fisher into a memorable character of literary weight.

The mystery stories of G. K. Chesterton are so good because they are precisely what modern mystery stories are not. They are more concerned with what people are than what people do. They teach the reader about what he is, rather than encouraging him to be repulsed by that which he is not. And, most of all, they are based on the idea that mankind can be redeemed.

I have decided to provide a guide at the bottom of my posts as help for anyone choosing literary texts to teach religion or ethics. I am outlining that which is useful for teaching, not for reading. Thus, particularly for the suggested ages, my assessment would differ for individual leisure reading. Please contact me if you have any questions.

The Father Brown Stories
Appropriate Age: 14+
Look for: Redemption, compassion, charity, a critique of rationalism, the role of a priest
Be Wary of: Violent situations--though usually not graphic
Availability: Free Online (copyright expired)

The Man Who Knew Too Much
Appropriate Age: 16+
Look for: Discernment--making difficult moral choices, patriotism
Be Way of: Violent situations--sometimes graphic, one instance of Antisemitism aimed at usurers
Availability: Free Online (copyright expired)