Sunday, September 16, 2007

Green with Envy! (His Dark Materials spoilers within)

Breaking news: my sister, who is getting a PhD in children's literature, has been invited by one of her professional connections to an upcoming exclusive cocktail party, and the guest of honor will be the one, the only...

Phillip Pullman!

I am incredibly jealous, also proud of her to be able to garner such an invitation whilst still in school. It raised an interesting question: if it was me, what would I want to ask him? I want to know whether you turn into Dust when you die (as is my hypothesis, based on the ending of The Amber Spyglass) and would want him to explain to me the connection between amber/electrum and anbaric power/electricity, and how it relates (if it does) to the Amber Spyglass used by Mary Malone in the final book. My sister wants to know if Will and Lyra ever do get back together.

He posts regularly to a listserv my sister participates in and once explained the deal with the daemons, that who you are and what you want drives the shape your daemon ultimately assumes, not the other way around. In other words, no one is forced into being a servant against their will even though their daemon takes the shape of a dog, and if you hate the sea, odds are your daemon won't settle as a dolphin. I was pleased to hear that, since that's how I'd always interpreted it.

You can go to goldencompassmovie.com to take a 20-question quiz which will give you your daemon. Mine was a male jackal named Zotius, one of 16,782 jackals of 265,634 people who've sought out their daemons with the quiz. Because I am spontaneous, modest, outgoing, humble and flexible. That sounds good to me, although I don't know how true it is. The site is fun, actually. It reminds me of the official Lord of the Rings site (which makes sense, as the trilogy will also be produced by New Line Cinema) in that it's not just a glorified commercial for the movie, but that there's all kinds of fun stuff to do on there. You can take the daemon quiz, ask the alethiometer shit, and explore Lyra's world. It's a very nice site, I think.

My sister says that Mr. Pullman is pleased with the film, so it should be worth looking forward to. At her request, I can't post more details about the party or about how she got the invitation, but I will post a report after it's all over, maybe even get her to be a Guest Blogger (if you're reading this, sis, consider this your invitation, if you have time!)