His Dark Materials

Often classed, like the Harry Potter series, as “young adult” or “kidult” fiction, His Dark Materials names a trilogy of novels that features two central characters, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, coming of age as they pursue a quest for knowledge that sees them journeying between different worlds. They are pursued by the forces of the Geneva-based Magisterium, a religious and temporal power that has John Calvin as its Pope and that seeks to control and repress human knowledge of the nature of the dark matter that makes up the universe. These are novels that investigate topics including parent-child bonds and the child’s imagination, the nature of selfhood, knowledge, love, freedom and friendship, intimacy, loyalty, and the nature of death. Ultimately, they take their place in the rich tradition of radical enlightenment that has long fought for the right to explore the liveliness of matter. We will read them against the background of some of their equally heretical sources; their author draws heavily on John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the poetry of William Blake, as well as ancient atomism, and classical epic poetry and its forms.