Edited by Scott Westerfeld - Teen Libris

All parents worry about the journeys their children take without them, even excursions
into works of fiction. Chima examines the fears raised by His Dark Materials,
wondering if perhaps books are alternate worlds, and reading is the subtle knife that
all ages get to play with.
The Dangerous Worlds
of Pullman’s
His Dark Materials
CINDA WILLIAMS CHIMA
In Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, young protagonists Will
Parry and Lyra Belacqua acquire the magical ability to cut doorways
into neighboring, parallel worlds through the use of a magical tool
called the subtle knife. Once there, their actions create a cascade of
changes that affect the world around them while they, in turn, are changed
by their experiences. They aren’t just observers-they are players.
While Will and Lyra are specially chosen for this task of inter-world
travel, we as readers of fiction have our own magical tools. Each time we
open a book, we cut our way into another world and step through-temporarily,
at least. This, to me, is what makes reading so compelling, compared
to other media-readers immerse themselves, participate, react,
and shape the action.
Pullman’s trilogy has been reviled and extolled, praised and pilloried.
It has been called “amazingly wonderful” (Ruiz) and “loaded down with
propaganda” (Hitchens).
What is going on? Are these people reading the same book?
Maybe not.
Reading is a collaboration between the writer and the reader in which
each contributes to the final story. The reader has as much to do with it
as the author, and it is the reader who delivers one of the most important
parts-the theme.
Theme evolves out of story and the reaction of the reader to the words on
the page. It’s like the fairy that disappears when you look straight at it. You
have to come at it at a slant. And if you spend all your time looking for fairies,
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