What do you make of His Dark Materials?

[Wombat]

Personally I love these books. They are well-plotted, well-paced, and well-written. As for the agenda, all books have an agenda of some sort. I love Madelein L'Engle's "Wrinkle in Time" series (I know there is another title for the series, but I forget what), which also has a rather ecumenical message; Lewis is trying to foist his theology relentlessly throughout Narnia.

For me it comes down to, Is This A Good Read? The Dark Matters books are a grand read. The agenda is less important than the general plot in these books, at least to my eye; certainly it is far less heavy-handed than Lewis.

Then again, for my money the best kid book is still Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, so I'm kinda out of the theological loop

 

[mmu1]

And what exactly do you think the real Christian church has done? Its sects have taught countless doctrines to approximately two thousand years' worth of children. Experimenting with souls is what all religions do.

Except Taoism, of course. Which in its pure form isn't even a religion at all. Go Taoism!

But back to the point: if you think such material is too dangerous to be given to children, do you favor exposing them to religious claims? That stuff is at least as dangerous, usually more, than what you're complaining about.

Are you unable to comprehend what you read, or just a typical whiny leftist vegetable?

What part of agnostic did you not understand? (like I said, so much for disclaimers...)

Yes, I wouldn't want some author sneaking religious messages (Christian or otherwise) into my (hypothetical) children's books either, their spiritual education would be strictly my business.

However, for the record, I find bitter atheist morons who take every chance they have to slam religion in a fanatical manner and fight to censor it under the guise of promoting a modern secular society a much bigger problem than any non-fundamentalist religion currently being practiced today.

 

[Pielorinho]

Wrath of the Swarm, I was gonna post to caution you that remarks like that are inappropriate on the boards and are likely to lead to even more inappropriate comments by other people, but looks like I was beaten to the punch.

 

[Eridanis]

One more personal attack, and this thread will be closed. Please keep it civil.

For my part, I started reading the first book when it came out, and never finished it. Never really grabbed me.

 

[Storminator]

I just read the first one. I have mixed feelings. I thought it was well done, and it was good enough to try the 2nd book, but by the end I just about wanted to scream "STOP BEATING ME WITH YOUR MESSAGE STICK!" It was pretty overdone IMO.

There were a lot of stylistic elements that I really enjoyed tho, so I'll give number two a go. I fear I'll have the same reaction to it, and read the third, only to decide at the bitter end wether or not I liked the series.

PS

 

[RenoOfTheTurks]

Are you unable to comprehend what you read, or just a typical whiny leftist vegetable?

What part of agnostic did you not understand? (like I said, so much for disclaimers...)

Yes, I wouldn't want some author sneaking religious messages (Christian or otherwise) into my (hypothetical) children's books either, their spiritual education would be strictly my business.

However, for the record, I find bitter atheist morons who take every chance they have to slam religion in a fanatical manner and fight to censor it under the guise of promoting a modern secular society a much bigger problem than any non-fundamentalist religion currently being practiced today.

Who cares if you said you were agnostic? No one denied that. Others are arguing issues and textual points while you are stuck on what everybody is or isn't.

I think the claim was that in this series the real world "experimenting" with souls translates to a more literal, magical version of the same. Which would be somewhat clever. I haven't yet read the books though.

As for your last point, I disagree completely, and would use the word "bitter" about a different type of person altogether.


Edit: typo, haha.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I think Pullman is an excellent writer, but I hate him and those books with a passion.

He very clearly has strong social beliefs involving not just the promotion of atheism, but attacking religion (primarily organized religion) outright, and I think this sort of thing has no place at all in novels being marketed as children's books and giving no outward indication that they actually deal with profoundly adult themes.

And for the record (not that it's going to help, I bet) I'm agnostic and it's the peddling of someone's politics to children under the cover of a straightforward fantasy story I object to, not necessarily Pullman's views.

No more pathetic than the number of blantantly religious books that are out there for children to read.

As an agnostic it must offend you some to see how children far too young to understand what they are being taught have religious views jammed down their throats.

If they were any other ideas we would call it brainwashing. But since it is religion it is ok. Riiiiiiiggggghhhhhht.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

However, for the record, I find bitter atheist morons who take every chance they have to slam religion in a fanatical manner and fight to censor it under the guise of promoting a modern secular society a much bigger problem than any non-fundamentalist religion currently being practiced today.

Yep, sour speech from atheists is much more dangerous to society than Catholic Priests raping little boys.

 

[Pielorinho]

Dangit! And I love these books, too, and wish we could have a good discussion of them without folks ruining it.

Daniel

edit: In case I can get an edit in before a mod comes along and closes this: Storminator, I understand where you're coming from. Personally I didn't find the message too bad, but that could well be because it agreed with me (in the sense that, say, sushi agrees with me ). I found the messages in other books, e.g., Narnia, gave me much worse indigestion.

If you can get past his views, however, I do think he presents fairly complex and plausible characters; even the folks that he clearly disagrees with act in a reasonable fashion, and the villains have very redemptive moments, especially in the last book in the series. Ignore the message for the great story, if you can; if you can't, why, you're like I am when it comes to Narnia. Which is a shame, but not one for which I can fault you in the least.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Wrath of the Swarm, I was gonna post to caution you that remarks like that are inappropriate on the boards and are likely to lead to even more inappropriate comments by other people, but looks like I was beaten to the punch.

Remarks like what, exactly? I'm not even saying that any particular flavor of Christianity is wrong, but given that it is believed that people have souls whose eventual fate depends on conduct in life, each and every time someone makes doctrinal claims about the nature of that conduct, they are in essence gambling with the souls of those who follow their religious teachings.

You don't have to agree with the point of the book, but the metaphor being used here isn't a particularly obscure one.