“Dark beginnings” ( eng. His Dark Materials ) is a fantastic trilogy by Philip Pullman . Includes the novels "Northern Lights", "The Miraculous Knife" and "Amber Telescope". In the list of 200 best books on the BBC version, the trilogy ranks third.
Dark beginnings | |
---|---|
His Dark Materials | |
Author | Pullman, Philip |
Genre | Fantasy |
Original language | English |
Original issued | |
Translator | Victor Golyshev , Vladimir Babkov |
Publisher | Rosman Press, 2007 |
Pages | 1520 |
Carrier | Paper |
ISBN | 978-5-353-02988-5 |
Content
Trilogy Books
- Northern Lights ( English Northern Lights , 1995). In the US, the novel came out under the name "Golden Compass" ( eng. The Golden Compass )
- Wonderful knife ( eng. The Subtle Knife , 1997)
- Amber telescope ( eng. The Amber Spyglass , 2000)
Continuation of the trilogy
- Oxford Lyra ( eng. Lyra's Oxford , 2003) - a story written at the request of fans
Oxford Lyra is a small book containing the story "Lyre and the Birds", as well as some additional material. The story describes an episode from the life of Lyra two years after the events of the Amber Telescope. Lyra and Panteleimon find the daemon of a witch in need of help. Lyra agrees to help, however, being in grave danger, soon realizes that Damon is not who he claims to be ...
Additional materials are published along with the story and include a map of Oxford in the world of Lyra, a postcard from Mary Malone, a promotional brochure of a cruise on a ship called Zenobia, as well as other advertisements from the world of Lyra. In the preface, Philip Pullman writes:
“This book contains history and several other things. These things may or may not be related to the story. They may be related to stories that have not yet appeared. It's hard to say. ”
- Once Upon a Time ( Eng. Once Upon A Time In The North , 2008)
“Once Upon a Time in the North” is another small book related to Dark Principles, which was published April 3 in the UK. The book is released in the same format as the Oxford Lyra, and will also contain additional material. The story takes place before the events of the trilogy, the story tells about the meeting of the king of armored bears Jorek Birnison and Lee Scoresby - an aeronaut from Texas.
Perhaps in the same format will be published another book that tells about Will.
- Dust Book ( eng. The Book of Dust , 2017) - published in 2018, there is a Russian translation and a printed version of the publisher AST.
The Book of Dust is a book from the Dark Beginnings series, which has become a prequel to the trilogy. Initially, The Book of Dust was conceived as a collection of stories, such as Lyra and Birds and Once Upon a Time in the North.
Story
The girl Lira Belaqua lives in a world where magic , theology and science are intertwined. She, like all the people of her world, has a demon - a part of her soul embodied in the body of an animal. Lyra lives in Oxford, in Jordan College, and with her daemon Panteleimon and other children disappears from morning to night in the streets of Oxford. Lyra is an orphan; her guardian is a polar explorer and her uncle Lord Asriel. One day there are rumors about the Priests, a secret organization that kidnaps children. Lira's best friend, Roger, also disappears. Looking for a friend give birth to a girl very far. At first, she falls under the authority of a certain Mrs. Colter, a beautiful, domineering and cruel woman who turned out to be her mother. She manages to escape with the help of a camp of gypsies who travel north to free the abducted children. On the way, she meets the witch Serafina Pekkala, an armored bear Jorek Birnison, and aeronaut Lee Scoresby. With the help of new friends and an aletiometer (an artifact that gives answers to any questions, if you know how to understand them), Lyra discovers the mystery of the Priests, finds Roger and frees other children.
At this time, Lord Azriel, having completed his studies in the north, finds a way to move between parallel worlds . For this, he needs the energy released when the bond between the deimon and man is broken. Lyra and Roger are accidentally near and Lord Asriel uses Roger to create a portal to a parallel world, while the boy dies. Azriel goes to another world. Lyra follows him. In another world, she meets a boy, Will Parry. In the fight, Will Parry gets a wonderful knife that can cut windows between worlds.
Lyra and Will learn that Lord Azriel wants to overthrow the Lord, the first angel who, after creating the world, declared himself a god of creation and who are served by the clergy in all worlds. To win, he needs two people: Lyra, who is to become a new Eve , and Will, the owner of a wonderful knife. Lyra and Will go through many adventures together.
World in trilogy
The world in the trilogy consists of an infinite number of parallel worlds. Thanks to magic you can get from one world to another. The actions of the novels take place mainly in the four worlds, which can be conditionally called “the world of Lyra”, “the world of Will”, “the world of Chittagazz” and “the world of mulef”.
Lira's World
In this world, people have daemon - creatures that make up an integral part of their personalities. There, besides people, live witches and reasonable armored bears . The main character, Lira Belakva, was born and lived there.
Will World
Our or very similar world. Will Parry was born there. Daemons are invisible, but they exist.
Chittagazza World
A world where all adults are attacked by Ghosts, but children can easily exist. Chittagazce - the name of one of the cities.
Mulef World
The world of wheeled animals, calling themselves " Mulef ." The wheels they use are tree seed boxes, they are very strong and grow very rarely by themselves. However, while they are used by the mulef, seed boxes gradually wear out and break up. Mulefs take care of the trees, because without wheels they move rather clumsily and slowly. There are natural roads in the world — as Mary Malone suggested, they are frozen lava flows .
Other Worlds
Among other worlds are the following. A world where, apart from people, live gallispayns - little men. A world where there is no intelligent life chosen by Lord Azriel as its base. The kingdom of the dead, guarded by harpies - half-half-women. Of intelligent beings, angels play an important role.
Intelligent Creatures
- Angels - the first creatures that appeared in the Universe consist entirely of Dust.
- Armored bears (pantserby) - polar bears from the world of Lyra, warriors. Armored polar bears. They live in the Far North, on Svalbard . Serve as mercenaries for those who pay the most. Independently forge armor from meteoric iron. Pantserbierns have no dymons, the soul of a bear is in its armor.
- Witches are creatures that inhabit both the world of Lyra and the world of Will. However, their fate is different in these two worlds. If in the world of Will the witches were burned at the stake, then in the world of the Lyra they quietly lived in sparsely populated territories ( Lapland , Latvia ). In the world of Lyra, witches live much longer than humans, fly not on brooms, but on branches of cloudy pine; Little is known about Will’s witches of the world, however, it can be assumed that their description corresponds to the generally accepted description of witches. Witch daemons can move hundreds of miles from their witches.
- Gallspins are tiny people with poisonous spurs flying on dragonflies . Allies of Lord Azriel in the fight against the Lord.
- Harpies are creatures that inhabit the world of the dead. They have a bird body and a human head.
- Mulefa - wheel animals of a diamond shape. They have one leg in the front, the other in the back, two more on the sides. They also have horns and trunks .
- Tualapi - reasonable birds attacking the mulef.
- People
Basic Terms
Dust (Shadows, Shraf) - mysterious elementary particles , known in different worlds under different names, for example, "Rusakov particles" in the world of Lyra, or Shadows in the world of Will. Changes in history are connected with it, when living beings began to possess reason. Surrounds all people (especially adults) and objects created by people. Dust - elementary particles of consciousness, matter, conscious of itself. Adults begin to attract dust at the moment when their daimon takes on the final look. From the point of view of the Magisterium - the material embodiment of original sin. Makes the aletimeter turn.
Aletiometer - a device that shows the truth , but in encrypted form - 36 mysterious characters. You can decipher the testimony with the help of the Book of Symbols, which is stored in the Abbey of St. Johann in Heidelberg, some especially talented people are able to do it intuitively, one of those was Lira Belaqua before her daimon took its final form.
Ezakhettr is a wonderful knife created in Chittagazza. One side of its blade can cut any material, and the other open windows between worlds.
Main characters
- Lyra Belaqua (Lyra Sirin) is the chosen girl who will play an important role in the creation of a new world. In the first novel was considered an orphan, she lived in Oxford . Damon Panteleimon became a pine marten.
- Panteleimon - Damon Lyra, took on different appearances: from a hawk butterfly to a cheetah , he became a forest marten.
- Will Parry - a boy from our world, a friend of Lyra, the bearer of a wonderful knife. His daimon, Kirdjava, became a cat.
- Lord Asriel - Lyra's father, who revolted against God. His daimon - snow leopard Stelmariya.
- Mrs. Colter - mother Lyra. Damon is a golden monkey .
- Jorek Birnison - king of armored bears, a friend of Lyra.
- Roger is a cook from Oxford, a friend of Lyra. Damon most often took the form of a dachshund .
- Serafina Pekkala - a witch from Lapland. Damon is the gray goose kaisa.
- Lee Scoresby - Aeronaut from Texas . Damon is an Arctic hare Esther.
- John Faa - the king of the gypsies. Damon is a raven .
- Farder Coram is an old gypsy. Damon is a fiery-red cat Sofonax.
- Mary Malone is a physicist , Dust researcher. Damon - Alpine Jackdaw .
- Stanislaus Grumman (John Parry, Jopari) is a polar explorer, the father of Will. Damon - Osprey Sayan Köther.
- Cavalier Tialis , Dama Salmakia , Lord Rock , Madame Oksantiel are gallispayns, spies of Lord Azriel.
- King Ogunwe - African King, Damon - cheetah .
- Yuta Kamainen - a witch in love with Stanislaus Grumman, killed him because he did not reciprocate her. Damon is a robin .
- Yofur Raknison - the former king of the Panzerb'yorn, displaced by Jorek.
- Atal is one of the mulephs. Friend mary
- Ama is a girl from a village in the Himalayas. Worn food Mrs. Colter in a cave.
Creation History
The main sources of inspiration for Pullman were John Milton 's poem “ Lost Paradise ”, as well as the poems of William Blake and the Bible [1] . The name was taken from Lost Paradise:
- Unless th 'Almighty Maker them ordain
- His dark materials to create more Worlds [2] .
In the Russian translation, these lines sound different:
- While the Creator All-powerful does not order
- They form new worlds [3] .
Pullman said that the whole story was formed “from unrelated plots, pictures that flash in my head and excite” [4] . The Northern Lights and the Miraculous Knife were written in two years, and the Amber Telescope in three.
Problematics Criticism
Although Pullman's trilogy belongs to children's literature, the author touches on quite non-childish, serious problems that go back to the books on which the plot is based. He himself says about it this way [4] :
The trilogy is based on the myth of creation and rebellion, development and resistance. I did not write about this in plain text, but it was important for me to reveal exactly this topic. This is an eternal struggle: on the one hand, control, which has a centuries-old history, strength and power (remember the Inquisition , the persecution of heretics, the burning of witches, all this nightmare, which religious fanatics are ready to carry out where it is possible today) the parties, those who fight with this control, the seekers of freedom, the ideologues of the Heavenly Republic. This is a struggle: the kingdom of God against the Heavenly Republic.
Criticism noted both the artistic features of the trilogy and the ideological position of the author.
The trilogy was widely discussed in the author’s homeland. Kate Kellaway believes that "Pullman's characters eclipse the characters of the Harry Potter books , which look like flat cartoon pictures next to them" [5] . Melanie Philipps writes that Pullman explores the nature of humanism and advocates morality: his characters are taught to make the right choice between good and evil [6] . A reviewer from the Christian Herald newspaper, angered by Puman’s atheism, calls his books “worthy of burning” [7] .
In Russia, the trilogy also caused a great resonance. Maya Kucherskaya writes about the first novel, that he is “superbly built, with an exciting plot, with well-placed traps, rhythmically thickening and disappearing tension”. Despite the author’s hatred for the Church, the novel, according to Kucherskaya, “is full of thirst for new spirituality, spirituality without God, without the tragic guilt of man, without original sin. Pullman ... builds his own picture of the world, a majestic and terrible, illuminated by the glare of the northern lights, in the rays of which the characters distinguish the parallel invisible world. We leave Lyra on the threshold of this alien, indifferent to the human world. Honestly, turning the last page of the novel, I want to drink hot tea and pull on a fur coat - such inhuman cold reigns in this artful, but very scary tale, in which good does not think to triumph. ” [8] . According to Roman Arbitman , the trilogy could become a competitor to the Harry Loss cycle, if it were not for such shortcomings as the psychological pallor of the heroine and a high degree of seriousness [9] . Sergey Lukyanenko writes that the first book of the trilogy is full of bright ideas, literary allusions, living characters, but all these virtues are negated by the author's godless ideas [10] . Julia Shtutina calls the trilogy “a short course of theomachism for schoolchildren,” and predicts that a big scandal will be associated with the future film adaptation [7] . Deacon Andrei Kuraev called the book "a frankly satanic tale" [11] .
“Dark beginnings” took the third place in the list of 200 best books according to the BBC version of 2003.
Russian translations
In 2003-2010, the publication of the trilogy in Russian was handled by the publishing house " Rosmen " [12] . Books in Russian were published in 2003-2004. The first book was originally translated by Olga Novitskaya , the translation of the entire trilogy was performed by Viktor Golyshev and Vladimir Babkov . In two translations, some names and terms differ significantly, this article uses the translation of Golyshev and Babkov.
Since 2016, the publishing house of the trilogy in Russia has been occupied by the publishing house AST [13] . The first book was released in the translation of Viktor Golyshev, the second - in the translation of Vladimir Babkov.
Screen adaptation
In 2007 , the release of the film " Golden Compass " on the first novel of the trilogy. The film involved such famous actors as Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman , and the main role was played by debutante Dakota Blue Richards .
In 2015, the BBC 1 TV channel ordered a television adaptation of the trilogy [14] . The filming began at the Studios Wolf Studios in Cardiff in July 2018. Daphne Keane (Lyra), James McAvoy (Lord Asriel), Ruth Wilson (Marisa Coulter) and Lyn-Manuel Miranda (Lee Scoresby) play the main roles in the series. The director of the first two episodes is Tom Hooper , screenwriter Jack Thorn [15] .
Notes
- ↑ Heaven, hell and hut in the depths of the garden. Conversation of Alex Sharkey with children's writer Philip Pullman (inaccessible link)
- ↑ Paradise Lost by John Milton. Book ii
- ↑ John Milton, Paradise Lost, trans. Arkady Steinberg
- ↑ 1 2 Philip Pullman: Towards the Republic of Heaven. Interview with the famous English storyteller
- Sage who has his own worlds. Kate Kellaway talks to the author of Dark Principles (inaccessible link)
- ↑ Melanie Phillips, “Children's writers are telling the truth, from which we feel uneasy” (inaccessible link)
- ↑ 1 2 Julia Shtutina, “A Short Course of Conquest for Schoolchildren”
- ↑ Maya Kucherskaya, “The Discreet Charm of Evil”
- ↑ Roman Arbitman, "Harry's Shadow, or Possible Options"
- ↑ Sergey Lukyanenko, “Philip Pullman and his Lego-God” (Inaccessible link) . The date of circulation is November 30, 2007. Archived December 15, 2007.
- Золотой Golden Compass - anti-Russian black PR
- ↑ Philip Pullman and his world (inaccessible link) . The date of circulation is November 30, 2007. Archived December 9, 2007.
- ↑ Philip Pullman "Northern Lights" - AST
- Ul Fullerton, Huw Jack Thorne opens up his His Dark Materials TV Series . RadioTimes (18 April 2017). The appeal date is March 9, 2018.
- ↑ BBC and the Bad Wolf unveil his team of Dark Materials (English) . bbc.co.uk. BBC (27 July 2018). The appeal date is August 20, 2018.
Links
Interview, criticism
- Heaven, hell and hut in the depths of the garden. Conversation of Alex Sharkey with children's writer Philip Pullman (inaccessible link)
- Sage who has his worlds. Kate Kellaway talks to the author of Dark Principles (inaccessible link)
- Melanie Phillips, "Children's Writers Speak Truth, from which we do not like" (inaccessible link)
- Maya Kucherskaya, “The Discreet Charm of Evil”
- Roman Arbitman, "Harry's Shadow, or Possible Options"
- Sergey Lukyanenko, "Philip Pullman and his Lego-God"
- Yulia Shtutina, "A Short Course of Convict for Schoolchildren"
- Alexander Dvorkin , “The Gospel of Lucifer: On Philip Pullman's Trilogy“ Dark Beginnings ””
- Priest Jacob Baglien, "The Golden Compass", or Not All That Glitters is Gold