We have a new essay by Robert Mueller below, about my dear aunt, Barbara Guest. He knows her work well, and offers a unique perspective. Barbara Guest deserves a much wider audience, and with the expected release of her collected poems in September, I have faith that that will happen. A new generation of readers should follow.
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Finished Philip Pullman's wonderful trilogy, His Dark Materials, and will write about the last two books this week. I will say up front that the last two books in the series provide fabulous material for more movies. No amount of pressure from church groups should prevent that. It would be a shame if it did. The philosophies involved, the overall and underlying spiritual messages, are positive. Very positive and life-affirming. And any attempt to snuff those films out would really only help confirm the fictional picture of dominant organized religions depicted in the three novels.
I find in the book that seems to have a forgettable title, but in which the magical character of the young and very bright Lyra is taken away from her queerly impish existence in an Oxford college and given the famous alethiometer device and left to go and find her way to save the world, that the relationship between Lyra and her uncle/father is exceptionally intriguing. Also the life of a marginal water people who enjoy the protection of the fens and who take her in in connection with her and their quest is very very beautifully imagined and rendered.