Daemons

Isobel and I went to a discussion of Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials trilogy last night, as part of the Sheffield Off The Shelf Literary Festival. It was hosted by the Dean of Sheffield in a United Reformed Church and we were expecting a certain amount of criticism of Pullman and "his picture of a corrupt church and a powerless and dying God" but we got a very balanced, very illuminating discussion.

One of my biggest issues with organised religion is the acceptance of classic texts as proof of God, but the Reverend Peter Bradley was quite happy to discuss the varying ways in which text can be interpreted to explain meaning, and that no-one point of view is correct. He was also very happy to admit that Pullmans view of 'The Church' (in these books the Church is an amalgamation of many of our organised religions) is somewhat fair, certainly in lieu of religious history.

Overall it was a very interesting, very intriguing event that ran on slightly too long but was hosted by a very personable, very humourous, very well read and very well educated man who I would not have thought a member of the clergy if it were not for the dog collar.

One of the issues under debate was Pullmans use of daemons. In classical literature sense the Daemon is an extension of the soul, and that it is used to Pullmans work. In this world each person is born with an daemon, a physical manifestation of their soul that takes many animal forms in childhood and becomes fixed as they enter adulthood. Your daemon is by your side thoughout all of your life - they are your conscience and your confidant and you cannot be separated without tragic consequences.

We were asked to consider what our daemon would be, and I half jokingly said that Hobbes, our slightly restless ginger cat, was the closest thing I had to a daemon. You've met Hobbes, right? He looks like this:

When we got home last night Hobbes was dutifully waiting outside the house, and then tripped over my feet as I popped upstairs to do a spot of internet uploading stuff. When I went out to get some food he followed me all the way to the take away, miaowing as he went. He then sat outside the take away while I collected the pizza, and followed me home all the way... running ahead and scouting for trouble.

I think Hobbes is my daemon. He was there outside the bedroom when we got up, he follows me into the bathroom to check for danger and he's been sniffing and sleeping on the pillow that Isobel uses since. Yup, that cat is part of my soul.

Apologies to Rob for turning this into a cat blog.