His Dark Materials?

[Stardust]

Maybe there's already been a question about this, but I need to know.

What are the "dark materials?"
Why are they dark?
Whose are they?

Ideas, anyone?

[eloquent]

Into this Wild abyss,
The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mixed
Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the mighty maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more worlds,
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend
Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while,
Pondering his voyage...

[Stardust]

Still lost........

[Gabe]

Philip Pullman got the name from that poem...

[Kinders]

Yes, but what the khyber does it mean?

[Tristan]

His would be God/The Almighty maker, dark materials apparently are something used in creation. So's the Golden Compass, actually... the name has nothing to do with the alethiometer.... its another thing from paradise lost used by God in the creation of the world.

[eloquent]

"Dark materials" is also a metaphor for "Dark matter", a.k.a. sraf.

[Kinders]

Aha, interesting... and to think me and Thom were getting all hung up on the fact that the Golden Compass isn't actually a compass...

[Will]

*Signs them up to the pro-NL brigade*

The slighty disturbing thing is that I can say that passage eloquent wrote, off by heart... It was at the start of the audiobooks and I was able to join in

[jessia]

well it's described as a "sort of compass" in the first book.

-------------------------------------------------------------

com·pass [kúmpəss, kómpəss]
n (plural com·pass·es)

1. direction finder: a device for finding directions, usually with a magnetized needle that automatically swings to magnetic north

2. personal direction: a sense of personal direction
a leader who was devoid of moral compass

3. scope: the scope of something such as a subject or area
beyond the compass of the inquiry

Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

-------------------------------------------------------------

it doesn't neccesarily have to point north.

[eloquent]

Indeed. If you were standing on the north pole it would point south.

[jopari]

geees. you don't have to be so negitive.

[eloquent]

What, it would! There's a big difference between true north and magnetic north.

[Stardust]

Still lost.....lol

What makes these "materials" dark?
Are they really dark, or dark as in "evil".......?

Sorry guys, I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer
(haha sharpest knife....get it?)

[jessia]

LoL, read into the passage a bit more.

[la bohemia]

I always thought the dark materials were the compass, etc. but then I was enlighted by actually reading the poem in front ^^;

[AySz88]

So's the Golden Compass, actually... the name has nothing to do with the alethiometer.... its another thing from paradise lost used by God in the creation of the world.

Woah, wait...then what exactly IS the Golden Compass???

[Tristan]

Here's the quote:

For Chaos heard his voice: Him all his train
Followed in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he centered, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure;
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference, O World!
Thus God the Heaven created, thus the Earth.

...PP mentions it in one of the interviews, don't know which one.

[AySz88]

Oh, that would be like the circle compass, but I doubt that "compass" has same meaning as the Golden Compass in the title...

[jessia]

another question for another letter for philip pullman.