Just Finished Reading: Navigating The Golden Compass – Religion, Science & Daemonology in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Edited by Glenn Yeffeth.
This was a ‘completely unauthorised’ selection of articles from fans and foes alike of Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials Trilogy. As a huge fan of those books myself it’s always nice to see how other people interpreted them. As you might expect from such a collection its mostly positive stuff – with a few notable exceptions. The gushing fan pieces did get a bit annoying after a while but there were a few interesting articles especially from other fantasy authors giving their analysis of why exactly the Trilogy worked so well. The only one I actually skimmed (and then largely skipped) was a mock letter to a newspaper extolling the virtues of Mrs Coulter – go figure. The final article was a rather bile filled attack on some of the very essence of the books asking over and over why didn’t Pullman write a much better book with a stronger pro-Christian message!
All in all this was not a bad volume. It managed to bring out some interesting aspects of Pullman’s work but could, I thought, have been much better (if maybe a bit heavier) with a bit less praise and a bit more thoughtful examination. It did make me want to read all three books again though….
4 comments:
Pullman is one of the greatest writers of our time and deserves to be remembered for genarations to come as much as we now remember the Oddisey or the Divine Comedy... perhaps even more.
It was he, as well as Richard Dawkins who first planted the seeds of 'doubt' and helped me figure out my ideas on religion.
I *really* like the Dark Materials stuff - though didn't like some of his other work so much.
Will they stand the test of time? I guess only time will tell [grin]
I must confess, while I enjoyed the books and thought the story and themes were quite interesting, I thought they weren't all that well written. They felt slight and a bit too dour, and I didn't find Pullman's style all that engaging. I got a little bored, particularly in books 2 and 3. :)
Still, great story, world, and characters... And of course, subject matter! Haven't checked out the film yet.
I'm in the middle of the Subtle Knife right now. Maybe I'll check out "Navigating ..." once I've completed all the books. I don't always pick up all the symbolism of books or movies and sometimes it's interesting to read reviews that point out their significance.
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