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| Philip Pullman |
The Golden Compass, released in 1995 (thus before the Harry Potter series, set to begin in 1997) is a wonderful book of fiction for children, also suitable for adults and more of the various obscenities that the market is usually pouring out, and is the first volume of the trilogy His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spyglass (2000), all published in Italy by publisher Bloomsbury. The novel is essentially an alternative world, a universe ucronico, in which the laws of science and physics are different from ours, and the story took an unexpected turn, the geography has other names, the technology is different and borders with the magic, the Church became a Catholic-Calvinist attempts to transform this and other worlds in a theocracy (some would say that this is not ucronia, but actually); witches hover in the sky and live for centuries, and there is a realm inhabited by the Nordic panserbiǿrne , giant polar bear warriors (which is not difficult to recognize the famous warrior-bear the berserker Germanic), endowed with great intelligence and speech, as well as experts in the arts of metal.
Humans also live with a daimon, or an animal companion, and his soul corporizzazione indivisible externally what we call the totem animal, in short, but perhaps it would be better to call in diction of heathen British "human person". In children, the daimon has not yet stabilized, changes shape, adults assume an identity corresponding to the final of the individual personality. It is worth recalling that in ancient Greece daimon was the intermediary between humans and gods (role to be supplanted by the Hebrew Malakhi and then by ' anghelos Christian), and then assume, with Socrates and Plato, the form of consciousness.
short, Pullman has a cultural substratum exquisitely traditional greek and Norse. And in addition to well-versed in fantasy literature (his imaginary world is indebted to a lot of darkness Dawn, a 1950 novel by Fritz Leiber, in which the church governs a future world using science to produce miracles, opposed by witches and wizards) must have read his book and made by Julian Jaynes, The collapse of the bicameral mind and the birth of consciousness, a text in the seventies opened a long debate on the human psyche. The psychologist suggested that existed in the greek world the ability to communicate with your daimon, which is a kind of second conscience, the basis of the typical phenomena of trance and possession of the oracles. And this capacity throughout childhood, we believe in it only in the form of "imaginary playmate", destined to disappear with the installation of consciousness, but could somehow be helped to stay alive.
And the daimon is one of the main points of the novel. Because as soon discover Lyra Belacqua, a girl and her eleven-year daimon Pantalaimon, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Magisterium (the political arm of the traditional Church) is to divide the human and animal, to seize power, and to prevent the spread of dust, the "physical evidence of original sin," capable of made "aware" people can make choices about good and evil, including the rebellion. The story revolves around all ' alethiometer, the "Golden Compass", a mechanical device that serves to understand the truth of things, and winds through several events: the attempted murder of his uncle Asriel, a scientist accused of heresy but also explorer who sets out in search of powder, the meeting Lyra with Mrs. Coulter, the "dark lady" of the situation, from her kidnapping by the mysterious Gobblers, the thieves of children, rescue work by Gyptians, a nation of sailors, and then the long journey north in search of the abducted children, including his friend Roger, the encounter with the witch Serafina Pekkala, the bear Iorek Byrnison el'aeronauta Texan Lee Scoresby, to reach a place called Bolvangar where children kidnapped by the Gobblers are deprived of their daimon, and where rincontrerò Lyra's friend Roger, until the reign of the ice bear warrior Iorek where resume possession of the throne that is rightfully ... the twists are succession, and the final taciamo than the reader ...
A short book, overflowing with ideas, criticisms, archetypes, a text that should be carefully read and pondered by adults because it puts in place very specific ideas about free will (the dialogue between Scoresby and Pekkala is illuminating in this regard), over paganism, the alternative worlds, and sull'insostituibile human dignity which is realized through the choice of way of life, and not to its imposition, in the style of life and not on its withdrawal. A book that has moved the waters Christian evangelicals first, then the Catholics (but which has little shaken Anglicans and Lutherans used to discuss the book will, from time immemorial), committed to accuse Pullman of every possible crime. The author, not content to defend positions Gnostic hours, now Pagan, now atheist, but anti-clerical, he repel attacks church, adding surplus in the finding that his criticism was any kind of abuse dogmatic, leading to parallel the ' Inquisition and the USSR as methodologies coartative ...
A book by Chris Weiz which drew in 2007 a film that, even before it came out in Italian cinemas, had given the go down to the whining and insults from the leaves of baciapile speed and no, not that they had not even taken a taste to see it, but only to continue the wave of protests Yankee, which involved even Kidman ...
A book of which the director Chris Weiz told only a part, written text directly. This has simplified and reduced many aspects and psychology of the story, cutting the story, after changing the order of the narrative, research by the children of Asriel, the bear and Scoresby. The characters were equal: Lyra (in the film, the talented Dakota Blue Richards), Asriel (Craig David, at ease in the part of lord adventurer, although its presence is only barely visible), Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman: as good as always at the In this case, the dark lady, but who pays the price for a certain role-typing), Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott the steel, in his usual role), and Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green, a figure almost lunar) But the reduction of the text has ended up breaking the unity of the narration, which does not proceed in a linear fashion.
The staging of this world and very much nineteenth-century London, imbued with extraordinary inventions (such as electric cars that seem Landau) and even more amazing reworkings (images Zeppelin and the balloon, more like to that of Father Lana Montgolfier brothers') seems to be rooted in that imaginary proto-science fiction, retrofuturistico of a literature that call for children would be reductive, that of Jules Verne and HG Wells, Jean De La Hire, and Our Salgari and Luigi Emilio Motta, rather than the American science fiction, and with a taste so typically European, just think of the aerial shots from the edge of the Zeppelin, in a scene in which "real" overlaps a scenario invented. The first fight between the bears and the great battle in the midst of snow, which sees the disorderly band of Gyptians Iorek the bear fight against the Tartars and their daimon, while from witches spoke of heaven, besides being an exquisite intersection between the Nordic tradition, and spirit greek Norse saga is also a set of sequences, taken from different angles, very effective. And above all, even in the digitization of special effects (from small animal companions of humans, bears the great warriors) can not perceive the gap that is increasingly manifesting between what is real and what is virtual. The film, always taking into account its destination (a kids' movie) works, despite the lack of, and could not be otherwise, the tension that is felt rather epic in the text; problem of simplification, but also the difficulty of dealing with a scientific topic under Profile mythical, or better still try the limit between science and magic. The above-mentioned Feyerabend would say that science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy imagine, but that every new idea in a scientific field, which also violates the rule serves to widen the horizons of knowledge. Even if it is powder or alethiometer . With all due respect to those who have seen the film and saga in the usual mysterious conspiracy against Catholicism, Catholicism is rather than how to plot against freedom and knowledge.
Ulysses Ursini
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