Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman's Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials

by Donna Freitas, Jason E. King

Freitas and King address the complex religious and spiritual dimensions of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Criticism

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 17, 2007

About the author

Donna Freitas is the author of The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano, Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention, and many other novels and nonfiction books for adults, children, and young adults. Her latest YA novel is a rom-com that takes place in her favorite city, Barcelona: Stefi and the Spanish Prince. She has been featured on NPR and The Today Show, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The LA Times, among many other places. Donna currently serves on the faculty at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s MFA program. She also lives half the year in Barcelona where she loves partaking of its many bakeries and delicious restaurants galore. Learn more about Donna at www.donnafreitas.com and on Substack: https://donnafreitas.substack.com.

Reviews

[James Madsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theologian and philosopher of religion David Tracy defines classics as "those texts that bear an excess and permanence of meaning, yet always resist definitive classification," and author Umberto Eco has written, "Every work of art, even though it is produced by following an explicit or implicit poetics of necessity, is effectively open to a virtually unlimited range of possible readings, each of which causes the work to acquire new vitality in terms of one particular taste, or perspective, or personal performance." Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is to my mind a prime example of such a classic work of art. A couple of months ago, someone at a lunch that I attended exclaimed that she wouldn't read HDM because Pullman has one of his characters "kill God." I'd like to recommend Killing the Imposter God to anyone who thinks that way about HDM. There is no doubt that Pullman used a rich tapestry of Christian sacred story and literature to create his masterpiece, and this book argues that one especially viable reading of his work is as a condemnation of an institutional perversion of Christianity rather than as an attack upon Christianity itself. The authors emphasize the similarities of Pullman's underlying value system with those of panentheism (*not* pantheism--there's a difference) and with those of liberation and especially feminist theology. One of the beauties of this book is that one need not be a liberation theologian, or even a Christian, to appreciate the viewpoint offered here. I highly recommend this book. Also, I personally found Chapters 8 and 9 particularly poignant.

[Wesley Schantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A work similar in spirit to Tony Watkins' excellent Dark Matter, in that Freitas and King situate HDM within a thoughtful Christian context, Killing the Imposter God goes a little further towards building up a scholarly theological apparatus for reading the trilogy. While the background in liberation theology, process theology, and feminist slants thereof is the book's strongest contribution, perhaps its greatest weakness is actually in how little it engages with other critical readers of Pullman, scholarly and more traditionally theological alike. Making a reading of HDM, rather than the secondary literature, their priority, though, is obviously the right move if one of the two has to be sacrificed for the sake of concision, or to appeal to a broader audience.

Their revisionist stance is announced in the authors' contention that Nietzsche's Zarathustra doesn't necessarily speak for the philosopher, emphasizing less the death of God than the birth of a new conception of God. Warranted or not, they place Nietzsche at the head of a lineage that stretches through Whitehead, Gutierrez, Boff, Keller and McFague. In short:

"Pullman wrote this trilogy during a theological era when alternative visions of the divine abound, so it is hard to understand how Pullman overlooked all these available alternatives and why he seems unable--or at least unwilling--to consider his own alternative divinity [ie, Dust] in the trilogy. Pullman has by no means killed off God in general. He has killed off only one understanding of God--God-as-tyrant--and an oddly antiquated and unimaginative one at that." (19, cf. Pullman's critique of 'epicycles' in his interview with Watkins)

Again, the argument looks at Pullman's story, rather than his public pronouncements:

"Once we are able to set aside Pullman's personal professions of atheism, it is not difficult to see how Dust takes on many qualities that are typically associated with the divine. Dust existed since the beginning. It always tells the truth... Dust is the source of all creation... And in The Amber Spyglass, we learn that Dust has yet another name: Wisdom--a name for God that many feminists have devoted much energy to exploring." (27)

"Dust holds everything together. It takes on different forms to become spirit, soul, and body, and to make a person. In this way, Dust becomes matter and the world. Even the angels and the Authority are created and formed out of Dust..." (51)

Now, surely that would imply that Dust does tell lies, starting with Authority claiming to be the Creator, all the way down to Lyra, until she learns the value of telling true stories? It may become a matter of semantics rather than metaphysics, but I wonder if the lengths to which Freitas and King take Dust might have been better informed by a brush with Rogers' vitalist monism. A similar squishiness enters in once they start talking about "agapic love" (93). All sorts of love are represented in Pullman, to be sure, but this one popularized by Lewis is probably further from his mind than Blakean (or even Dantesque) desire, which get much shorter shrift. One interesting distinction does get pushed quite firmly, though:

"This claim [by the review in First Things]--that Pullman's notion of salvation is too shallow--is itself shallow. The end of The Amber Spyglass cannot be reduced to two distinct salvific moments--one superficial and one more complex. It should be understood instead as a complicated drama of salvation in three intimately interconnected acts, all of which are linked and indispensable, and correspond to his triune vision of humanity and panentheistic understanding of the divine." (108)

Those three moments, if I have them straight, are the descent into the underworld, the romantic awakening, and the final return to their own worlds. This is the strongest stretch of the argument in the book, for me. The tail end of the series has always been the most complex and difficult for me to interpret, and while I don't go along with them all the way, Freitas and King do a great job offering some support for the position that HDM's ending, far from being a disappointment as many readers feel, is worthy of the story as a whole:

"In what may be the most powerful section of HDM (when Lyra decides to free the ghosts...) Lyra ... becomes the new Moses... Dorothee Soelle argues that humanity learns its purpose in creation through the Exodus story. "In the beginning," she writes, "was liberation." (120, cf. Soelle, To Work and to Love: A Theology of Creation)

"Many liberation theologians read Exodus as logically preceding Genesis; the Israelites have to be liberated from slavery to become a people, and only once they are a people do they ask about and remember their creation. Similarly, it is possible to read God's revelation ... to his chosen people as an act, not only of saving the Israelites but also of saving God... [Pullman's] story culminates, not in the death of God but in God's [ie, Dust's] salvation." (152)

"Pullman has come to a surprisingly Christian conclusion. Echoing the Gospel of John, he seems to conclude that the key to the universe is love and that Real Love requires great personal sacrifice for the love of others. Jesus' mission was to save people..." (156)

"If the preservation of consciousness and creativity and everything else that Dust represents requires sacrifice--even the sacrifice of erotic love, at least on a personal level--then we must be prepared to make that sacrifice, to say the goodbyes that it demands." (157)

The story of Lyra and Will becomes a new Gospel, "the grand story of salvation," complete with a creed (166).

"It is also surprisingly Greek, indebted nearly as much to Socrates and Plato as to God the Father and God the Son. In these novels, preserving true knowledge seems to be more important than preserving true love. In the end, the mind trumps the body. Consciousness trumps matter. Divinity demands the sacrifice of humanity." (158)

"Will and Lyra are asked by the force of circumstance to give up the expression of embodied love of each other, in exchange for the realization of a more ultimate love--their Love of Dust. Whether this is good news is up to the reader to decide. But there seems to be something of a Fall, even in Pullman's Gospel." (159)

Very much so! And it's an aspect of the story we'll see in a new light, perhaps, with the release of the further Book of Dust. Too much gets conflated and set into rhetorical flourishes there towards the very end for me. The interview with the author of Wicked also seems like an odd fit, though he has some interesting points. Still, Freitas and King represent an important contribution to the study of Pullman's initial HDM trilogy.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author creates some imaginative themes, but tries to pound a self-pronounced-and-proud-of-it atheist's anti-organized-religion trilogy into a Christian framework using trendy "liberation" theology.

[Rick Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good theological analysis of Pullman's trilogy, showing how his "atheism" actually is consistent with the prophetic-apostolic biblical tradition.

[Q · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

While the foundations of this analysis are based mostly in liberation and feminist theology (neither of which I knew much about before reading this), Killing the Imposter God provides a thought-provoking framework from which to read His Dark Materials. In short, Pullman sounds more like an Old Testament prophet than an actual atheist, calling out institutions who pay lip service to a god they do not understand. Pullman unwittingly deifies the divine, and places personal love and knowledge as servants of a greater Love and Knowledge (very Christian AND Greek!)

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed their ideas about religion.

[A · Rating 2 out of 5]

Riddled with typos and incorrect plot and story details. Not well written and clearly started with the conclusion and worked backwards.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I think much of what's here is a stretch.

[Laura Petto · Rating 5 out of 5]

want to reread, excellent by my memory

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

His Dark Materials was a banned book when I was in high school and I finally got around to reading the trilogy this spring - and (surprise!) I loved it!!! Then I found this treasure and it felt like enjoying a fantastic book discussion with good friends. HDM is really one of those books that you have to read to appreciate and Freitas & King go beyond just reading & enjoying to a deep deep appreciation and study of the books. It opened my eyes to not only the fictional work but also my own understanding of my faith and gender and world and !!!!! I really really liked it.

I don't know what Pullman would think about it, as he has said himself that his books were secular and he's a self-proclaimed atheist, but I found so much spiritual beauty while reading the trilogy & Freitas/King explained so many of my feelings ...so much more eloquently and while introducing me to elements of theology and history that I didn't even know existed.

"True, a god dies (in nietzche's thus spoke Zarathustra). But in that same text the seeds of a "new God" are sown - an alternative vision of the divine that makes room for becoming, imagination, creativity and all those other things that [he] valued."

"From what we are, spirit. From what we do, matter." (Dust, from the Subtle Knife p249)

[Talia · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is difficult for anyone to argue that an author and his work can remain consistent to a belief system that the author has explicitly claimed that the opposite is true. As a result, Freitas and King have their work set out for them, and they reach their goals with limited success. They have demonstrated that Pullman's work is consistent with Liberation theologians, and it is interesting to learn about this particular response of religion coming into contact with issues brought up by modernity. That said, I think that while the premise of the His Dark Materials trilogy can indeed be easily found liberation theology, the authors do have difficulty convincing me that it isn't in fact an atheist work. They do not claim how it can be one, and not the other. In fact, I am unsure whether they ever claim that it isn't atheist-- it is, after all difficult to say that the author, who knows much about theology, was mistaken when he created the premise of the book.

That said, this is a well-written work and is very accessible to people who do not know much of theology.

[Stephanie]

I am intrigued. I did feel like the version of God that Philip Pullman attacks was indeed not worth worshipping, but that a truer vision of God is emerges unscathed from his critique. In the hope that this book offers good discussion of these issues without distorting the source material, I would like to read it.

[Amber Ziegler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty cool interpretation of religious themes in Pullman's trilogy. I enjoyed it.