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Karen's Reviews > His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials (His Dark Materials #1-3)
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** spoiler alert **
So, I was interested in reading The Golden Compass series by Phillip Pullman (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass) because some parents have asked us to remove it from the shelf at the school library. After hearing the allegations about the books (that they are intended to persuade children to become atheists), I was feeling like people had not given them a chance. I had already begun to read The Golden Compass before I had heard about any of the controversy, after all, and there was nothing that I could find that was questionable. So I continued to read. Even after the second book, it seemed as though he was only speaking out against corrupt religion, which I think is a good thing. Not too far into the third book, however, it was clear that he believes all religion is corrupt.
The premise of the books is essentially that there was an angel a long time ago that put himself above the other angels and called himself God and the Creator (even though he was not) and that his goal is to keep people from gaining knowledge(that's why gaining knowledge was the original sin). The rebel angels (you know, that 1/3 from the war in heaven) have been fighting against him ever since and trying to help humans learn. And they enlist the help of two children to help them destroy God and create the Republic of Heaven (rather than the Kingdom).
There's a lot more to the stories, of course, and they are well written and interesting, but they still really hurt my feelings. In his books, the only religious people are either power-hungry hypocrites or fearful and ignorant. He writes about love and accepting people even with their faults (his main characters are flawed on purpose, I think) and the power of human relationships and following your instincts and the great value of learning. I am in complete agreement with pretty much everything he writes about those things. He seems to have a good understanding of how we all interact with and need each other. But the major flaw I see is that his goal is to show that religion is the antithesis of all of those good things; it is only useful for repressing people. So, while he may know a lot about life, he is quite ignorant about religion and people's reasons for being religious. Maybe he should stick to writing about things with which he is familiar.
For the record, I still don't think it should be removed from the shelves at school. As my sister said to me, "Nothing good ever came from censorship." I agree. It would probably create more problems than it would solve. And I want to have my freedom of expression protected, so I can't take away someone else's. Still, I think parents should be making informed decisions about what their children are reading.
The premise of the books is essentially that there was an angel a long time ago that put himself above the other angels and called himself God and the Creator (even though he was not) and that his goal is to keep people from gaining knowledge(that's why gaining knowledge was the original sin). The rebel angels (you know, that 1/3 from the war in heaven) have been fighting against him ever since and trying to help humans learn. And they enlist the help of two children to help them destroy God and create the Republic of Heaven (rather than the Kingdom).
There's a lot more to the stories, of course, and they are well written and interesting, but they still really hurt my feelings. In his books, the only religious people are either power-hungry hypocrites or fearful and ignorant. He writes about love and accepting people even with their faults (his main characters are flawed on purpose, I think) and the power of human relationships and following your instincts and the great value of learning. I am in complete agreement with pretty much everything he writes about those things. He seems to have a good understanding of how we all interact with and need each other. But the major flaw I see is that his goal is to show that religion is the antithesis of all of those good things; it is only useful for repressing people. So, while he may know a lot about life, he is quite ignorant about religion and people's reasons for being religious. Maybe he should stick to writing about things with which he is familiar.
For the record, I still don't think it should be removed from the shelves at school. As my sister said to me, "Nothing good ever came from censorship." I agree. It would probably create more problems than it would solve. And I want to have my freedom of expression protected, so I can't take away someone else's. Still, I think parents should be making informed decisions about what their children are reading.
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January 14, 2008
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Marian
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rated it 4 stars
Feb 08, 2008 10:56AM
Completely agree. I am an educator myself and can see why this book would concern parents. But, I am also fairly liberal, and think censorship is crap. I have not yet finished the second book, and I am trying to be open minded. Although I am not crazy about organized religion I do think it is a vehicle to reach God, and it is a better option for people than isolation.
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When you say, "while he may know a lot about life, he is quite ignorant about religion and people's reasons for being religious" you do exactly what you accuse him of doing, which is dismissing other people's experience with religion as nonsense, because you've seen something different. I imagine you both would actually value 90% of the same things, just disagree on what should be done. None of that seems the book's fault.
So pathetic thinking that children find some kind of grand moral lessons from reading some imaginative literature. I just enjoyed this as a great story as a kid... Us Adults really suck sometimes. It's so sad if children are missing out on these kind of adventures because of the ideologies of their parents. But saying that
IM A LIBERAL ATHEIST.
Brainwashing seemed to work.
This is Fantasy. I don't know why people must correlate its with religion at all. In college I was in several religious studies classes, taught by a Catholic priest. We were told that most of the Bible is parables and laws much like Aesop's fables, written to teach morals and values. For the most part it is stories. Phillip Pullman's books are fantasy. I did not read anything that I thought would sway a child to become an atheist. Next thing you know, you and so many others will be reading conspiracy theories in Peter Rabit, after all he disobeyed.
I'm not a religious person, But the way Pullman criticizes religion is so preachy, one-sided and banal that I found myself rooting against the main characters. There are hundreds of religions in the world and without doubt some of them are evil and detrimental to civilization, But offering a narrow one-sided secular alternative as Pullman does is equally ugly.
Brenda Law It is not just some "conspiracy theory" that people correlate this books with religion. Philip Pullman openly claims that these books are atheistic and anti-religious and that he wrote them as a direct answer to Narnia books of which he speaks as one of the most nonsensical books ever written. I myself am against censorship as well but I find these books quite offensive. All the religious questions should people decide for themselves and if Philip Pullman thinks it's too much to put God directly to books I would say it's too much to directly deny Him. I think he's gone too far
it is not because an author writes about an evil church in a book that people who read it will become atheist. I read it 3 times and I am still a LDS ( mormon)
You do realise that the central plot point regarding the creator being an inferior & flawed being is almost rote lifted from Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a collection of cults that featured an early & divergent branch of Christianity. Pullman didn't invent this...
