…Dust came into being when living things became conscious of themselves; but it needed some feedback system to reinforce it and make it safe…Without something like that, it would all vanish. Thought, imagination, feeling, would all wither and blow away, leaving nothing but a brutish automatism; and that brief period when life was conscious of itself would flicker out like a candle in every one of the billions of worlds where it had burned brightly…Matter loved Dust. It didn’t want to see it go.’
Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass ‘There is Now’, 476
Watch Philip Pullman speaking about the series
I’ve just finished reading His Dark Materials for the…nth time (I forget) – it’s been a favourite since my mum bought the first of Pullman’s trilogy for me for Christmas. I was 11 when I first read Northern Lights, so I felt as though my own reading experience was aligned with Lyra’s self-discovery. I had to wait until I was well into my late teens for the dénouement of the series, a fact that plagued me greatly: every spring and autumn I would go to the information desk of Waterstones to ask about the third book’s status…
Now when I re-read the trilogy, I am looking at it through the eyes of an adult who has lived through the “Cambridge experience” – all right, it’s the ‘Other Place’ that is depicted in the book, but my wide-eyed begowned eighteen year old self, who walked through the Main Court and entered the Hall for matriculation dinner (complete with glasses to flick gently with a fingernail), was not so very far from Lyra. There was the same powerful curiosity – and not a little awe – that spurred her very first exploration in the opening chapter.
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