Britain Is Entering a Parallel Universe

In Philip Pullman’s series of fantasy novels, “His Dark Materials,” we enter a universe containing an infinity of parallel worlds. In the most important of these worlds, which is similar to ours in many respects, evolution and history have had subtly different outcomes. Human beings have visible souls — small, semi-autonomous “daemons” that take the shapes of animals. And the Reformation has failed, leaving Europe still under the dominance of an obscurantist and oppressive “Magisterium.”

The home of the indomitably mendacious young heroine, Lyra Silvertongue, is an Oxford in which the nearest thing to physics is “experimental theology.” The Scientific Revolution has not been fully achieved and the Industrial Revolution looks equally incomplete. Lyra’s is a world that remains in many ways early modern. There are no planes, only balloons and airships. There is a primitive form of electricity but “anbaric” light is a luxury. The social order too lags behind our own. Servants rather than machines still perform most menial tasks. There are priories full of nuns. Politics remains an aristocratic preserve.