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T A B L E+T A L K

Are creative writing programs strangling contemporary fiction? Join the seminar in Table Talk.

F E A T U R E

Satan goes to Harvard
By Mary Gaitskill
Is "evil" the best explanation for Sinedu Tadesse's savage murder of her college roommate?
(10/13/97)

R E C E N T L Y

The Last Time I Wore a Dress
By Daphne Scholinski (with Jane Meredith Adams)
Nonfiction
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Stone Cowboy
By Mark Jacobs
Fiction
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My Brother: A Memoir
By Jamaica Kincaid
Nonfiction
(10/09/97)

As Though I Had Wings
By Chet Baker
Nonfiction
(10/08/97)

Toward the End of Time
By John Updike
Fiction
(10/07/97)

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the subtle knife

BY PHILIP PULLMAN

KNOPF

FICTION

326 PAGES

BY RACHEL PASTAN | in 1995, Philip Pullman published "The Golden Compass," the first volume of a trilogy of fantasy novels called "His Dark Materials," ostensibly written for young adults. I had never heard of Pullman until this summer when a children's bookseller told me he was the best fantasy writer since Tolkien. The book drew me in so immediately and deeply that I actually looked forward to getting up at 3 a.m. to nurse the baby so I could read a few more chapters. When I finished the novel, my only consolation was the discovery that the second volume, "The Subtle Knife," was about to come out.

Nearly as good as its predecessor, "The Subtle Knife" chronicles a determined, unhappy boy named Will, son of a long-vanished arctic explorer, who finds a window from Oxford, England, into another world. There he meets a girl named Lyra and her dæmon -- a kind of animal manifestation of her inner self. Lyra, the feisty, mischievous protagonist of "The Golden Compass," has come to the city in search of a mysterious substance called Dust, but she abandons her own mission to help Will find his father.

One reason fantasy books can be so captivating is that everything in them is new, a mystery to be explored: Why is this new world inhabited only by children? What are the Specters and why are they invisible? What exactly is a dæmon, and what happens if you don't have one? On the other hand, the invented world must maintain some of the essential qualities of our own -- it must be internally consistent, for example, and human nature must remain more or less as we know it. Many fantasy writers fail to appeal to a more general audience because they get so caught up in invention that they neglect to create compelling and complicated characters. Pullman strikes an excellent balance between imagination and verisimilitude, and his major characters are as interesting and human as anyone we would meet in a decent realistic novel.

Like many fantasy books, "The Subtle Knife" is about a cosmic battle between good and evil and the search for an object of power. "The Golden Compass" has a more original structure than this book does, but Pullman is a skillful writer who doesn't rely on stock elements to do his work for him, using them instead in creative and unexpected ways. Indeed the overarching moral and religious pattern, once revealed, is so shockingly subversive that I was amazed -- and intrigued -- to find it in a mainstream novel for children.

And now that I know what the trilogy is "about," I'm more anxious than ever for Pullman to publish the final installment. How can I wait two years to learn whether the rebel angels will triumph over the Authority, and at what price?
SALON | Oct. 14, 1997

Rachel Pastan is a columnist and reviewer who lives in Madison, Wis. She has recently finished her first novel.