okieinexile
Well-Known Member
His Really Dark Materials
By Bobby Neal Winters
The Harry Potter series of books have been wildly popular among young people and adults alike, but they have been controversial in some religious circles because they are set within the realm of fantasy with characters that are wizards, witches, and so forth. People get nervous where their children are involved, especially with something that has been as big a craze as Harry Potter. On the other hand, there have been books of fantasy like the Narnia Series of C.S. Lewis where the language of witches and wizards has been used as a religious metaphor. It seems that a reasonable solution to the problem would be to read the books themselves to decide whether they are harmful. (Those who know me just sucked in air because I've not yet read The Da Vinci Code. One day I will. I promise. Maybe.)
Some people are still nervous about Harry Potter because the series isn't finished, and the final books might have sinister content. The sting might be in the tail, as they say.
This brings to mind another series of books by Phillip Pullman that is entitled His Dark Materials and includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. It is based on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the first book of the series, The Golden Compass is set in an alternate earth where John Calvin had been pope. This first book is nothing short of a work of pure genius.
In this world, each human has a "daemon" that is essentially his soul in the form of an animal. Pullman uses these as devices to gauge emotion and hint about character. Strong characters have powerful daemons in the form of snow leopards, and servants have daemons shaped like dogs.
The trilogy takes the form of an epic journey. The main character, a young girl named Lyra, sets off on travels that will eventually take her to many alternate Earths as well as the world of the dead.
My family listened to trilogy on cassette. The books are performed, not merely read, and the results are amazing. The array of accents alone is worth the experience.
Pullman's characters are quite complex. It is almost impossible to decide who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. I think this is wonderful experience for a young reader, as we are often confronted in the world with similar situations, when our judgments of individuals must either be suspended or reversed.
The second book, The Subtle Knife introduces a character named Will who is from our Earth. He steps through a door between worlds and meets Lyra, and their adventures together dominate the rest of the trilogy.
Pullman has a talent for creating new worlds and making them seem real. The descriptions are rich and layered, the different volumes are prefaced with poetry from Milton, Blake, and so forth, and the situations our heroes find themselves in are exciting and morally challenging. In short, the first two books and the first two-thirds or so of the last, are among the best I've seen. However, as I said earlier, the sting is in the tail, and the final third of The Amber Spyglass taught me more about bad writing than I thought was possible.
All the punctuation is there, all the sentences flow, but the author makes some deadly mistakes. At the very point where he should be bringing all of his threads together and tying up the loose ends, he chooses instead to leave some major threads dangling have one of his characters make a speech about giving up life as a nun and becoming an atheist. "The Christian religion is just a powerful and convincing mistake," we are told by a character who is a nun-turned-atheist.
I've read tons of science fiction in which it was assumed that anyone smart enough to breath in and out must be an atheist, but I've never seen atheism evangelized in a more boring fashion. I don't care so much if you hold me and my beliefs in contempt, but please don't bore me in the process. The ending is drawn out ad nauseum and is ultimately a cheat of even the author's point of view.
My middle daughter who had loved the bulk of trilogy with a passion, ultimately just wanted it to be over. When the last tape finished my daughter turned it off without any signs of regret. She was visibly glad it was over.
In attempting to force a point of view down his reader's throats, a very talented writer managed to alienate the very people he was trying to convince.
This is very instructive in a couple of ways. One of these was that none of us was converted from Christianity to atheism either by the subtle message conveyed in intricate metaphor of the first part of the trilogy or the heavy-handed sermon during the interminable homestretch.
The other is that when an author preaches, it is boring. We needn't worry about J.K. Rowling taking a dark turn in the final book of the Harry Potter series to lead our children into the sea like the Pied Piper. If she did, it would be boring, and our children wouldn't follow.
In short, the bulk of His Dark Materials is entertaining and thought provoking, but the ending mars this would-be masterpiece.
By Bobby Neal Winters
The Harry Potter series of books have been wildly popular among young people and adults alike, but they have been controversial in some religious circles because they are set within the realm of fantasy with characters that are wizards, witches, and so forth. People get nervous where their children are involved, especially with something that has been as big a craze as Harry Potter. On the other hand, there have been books of fantasy like the Narnia Series of C.S. Lewis where the language of witches and wizards has been used as a religious metaphor. It seems that a reasonable solution to the problem would be to read the books themselves to decide whether they are harmful. (Those who know me just sucked in air because I've not yet read The Da Vinci Code. One day I will. I promise. Maybe.)
Some people are still nervous about Harry Potter because the series isn't finished, and the final books might have sinister content. The sting might be in the tail, as they say.
This brings to mind another series of books by Phillip Pullman that is entitled His Dark Materials and includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. It is based on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the first book of the series, The Golden Compass is set in an alternate earth where John Calvin had been pope. This first book is nothing short of a work of pure genius.
In this world, each human has a "daemon" that is essentially his soul in the form of an animal. Pullman uses these as devices to gauge emotion and hint about character. Strong characters have powerful daemons in the form of snow leopards, and servants have daemons shaped like dogs.
The trilogy takes the form of an epic journey. The main character, a young girl named Lyra, sets off on travels that will eventually take her to many alternate Earths as well as the world of the dead.
My family listened to trilogy on cassette. The books are performed, not merely read, and the results are amazing. The array of accents alone is worth the experience.
Pullman's characters are quite complex. It is almost impossible to decide who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. I think this is wonderful experience for a young reader, as we are often confronted in the world with similar situations, when our judgments of individuals must either be suspended or reversed.
The second book, The Subtle Knife introduces a character named Will who is from our Earth. He steps through a door between worlds and meets Lyra, and their adventures together dominate the rest of the trilogy.
Pullman has a talent for creating new worlds and making them seem real. The descriptions are rich and layered, the different volumes are prefaced with poetry from Milton, Blake, and so forth, and the situations our heroes find themselves in are exciting and morally challenging. In short, the first two books and the first two-thirds or so of the last, are among the best I've seen. However, as I said earlier, the sting is in the tail, and the final third of The Amber Spyglass taught me more about bad writing than I thought was possible.
All the punctuation is there, all the sentences flow, but the author makes some deadly mistakes. At the very point where he should be bringing all of his threads together and tying up the loose ends, he chooses instead to leave some major threads dangling have one of his characters make a speech about giving up life as a nun and becoming an atheist. "The Christian religion is just a powerful and convincing mistake," we are told by a character who is a nun-turned-atheist.
I've read tons of science fiction in which it was assumed that anyone smart enough to breath in and out must be an atheist, but I've never seen atheism evangelized in a more boring fashion. I don't care so much if you hold me and my beliefs in contempt, but please don't bore me in the process. The ending is drawn out ad nauseum and is ultimately a cheat of even the author's point of view.
My middle daughter who had loved the bulk of trilogy with a passion, ultimately just wanted it to be over. When the last tape finished my daughter turned it off without any signs of regret. She was visibly glad it was over.
In attempting to force a point of view down his reader's throats, a very talented writer managed to alienate the very people he was trying to convince.
This is very instructive in a couple of ways. One of these was that none of us was converted from Christianity to atheism either by the subtle message conveyed in intricate metaphor of the first part of the trilogy or the heavy-handed sermon during the interminable homestretch.
The other is that when an author preaches, it is boring. We needn't worry about J.K. Rowling taking a dark turn in the final book of the Harry Potter series to lead our children into the sea like the Pied Piper. If she did, it would be boring, and our children wouldn't follow.
In short, the bulk of His Dark Materials is entertaining and thought provoking, but the ending mars this would-be masterpiece.
