I just finished reading “The Golden Compass” by Phillip Pullman. I want to come right out and say that before any more of my very good Christian friends spam me with the why-not-to-read-and-boycott-the-movie emails. I had a very good reason for reading the book (which I will not get into here). I read it with an open mind (it might have been more open if I had not read those emails before I read the book, but that can’t be helped). OK, so I was determined to have an open mind and I really tried to.
It is decent sci fi/fantasy. I’ve read better (Tolkien comes immediately to mind: this is nowhere near Tolkien’s genius. I’m not a CS Lewis fan, but his books were better, too. And for a series that I can’t put down that can sometimes be mediocre, but which I find to be superior to Pullman’s series, I will take Anne McCaffrey’s Dragons of Pern any day). But it’s still readable sci fi/fantasy and mediocre satire. Actually, as satire, it’s a little too obvious and the author’s interviews are so darn wishy-washy that the satire falls flat on it’s face. Either Pullman is an athiest or he is an agnostic: he can’t be both (maybe someone should point out to him that he is vacilating).
I read one interview where he actually said he was not satirizing (attacking?) the Catholic Church. Well, his satire is a tad bit too obvious for denial, so he might as well be honest and admit he is attacking the church. Wishy washy.
The satire and the attacks on the Church didn’t bother me. A lot of what he wrote is true or has been true of dead religion, conquest, and the history of the Church. People have been murdered, tortured, disfigured, and forced to conform to another culture’s interpretation of “Christianity.” A lot of bad things have been done in the name of Christianity, and none of which had anything to do with a real relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s a sad fact we have to live with, especially those of us who profess Christ.
What did bother me and does bother me is that the book is promoted as a children’s book. Whoa. The story is a bit too dark for children. That would be like calling “Great Expectations” a child’s story. Young adult, yes. Child? I can’t see a little child sitting through a read aloud of that. The Golden Compass is actually a lot darker than Dickens’ writing. The heroine is an orphan who finds out she has parents, but they are emotionally distant from her. She runs away from her mother when her mother’s soul (daemon) threatens to cold-heartedly kill her own soul (daemon). (The soul in Pullman’s narrative is in a bodily form, removed from the human body and in the shape of an animal). She suspects her mother is somehow involved in the kidnapping of young children across the land (the Gobblers come and steal children). That, alone, would give a sensitive child nightmares. I had bad dreams after reading some of that.
Lyra finds herself on a quest to rescue her best friend, Roger, from the Gobblers, only to find herself ensnared in the same Nazi-esque concentration camp with him. She barely escapes having her soul cut from her (which would mean certain death: she meets one of the “severed children” in the snow before she is captured and he dies because he has lost his soul (daemon). Just that term gave me nightmares (I tend to be overly sensitive): a “severed child.” UGH. Quite the read-aloud so far. The severed child is really no more than a zombie. If Lyra’s mother had been present, however, Lyra would have been spared that scene, because despite her emotional distance from her daughter, the mother desires that Lyra not be offered up as a sacrifice (she doesn’t mind using other people’s children for her “experiments”, but not her own child).
Lyra manages to rescue Roger and all the children (all good fantasy epics have a heroic quality to them, no problem there). However, she is nearly captured by her mother and somehow ends up in the frozen wastes in the polar bear kingdom. The polar bears walk, talk, fight and are almost human except they have no daemons. Their soul is in their armour. There is a fight for supremacy in which the loser gets the lower half of his jaw ripped off, leaving his tongue lolling out and across his chest. Um: graphic. I cover my eyes when I re-watch “Braveheart”: I’m not subjecting a child to that kind of violence. Then the winner tears open the chest of the loser and eats his heart (“Last of the Mohicans” – I cover my eyes during that scene, too). Lyra is reunited with Roger and they eat the raw liver out of a seal (an animal which is, sadly, just a lump of blubber and food for the polar bears who are superior animals: hope no one is a vegan).
She manages to find her father (another emotionally distant adult figure) only to find out he is as diabolical as her mother and just as reluctant to use Lyra as his sacrifice. He steals her friend Roger instead. While Lyra bravely tries to save Roger and Roger fights valiantly against being murdered, sadly there is no happy ending to this book. Roger’s soul is mercilessly slaughtered by Lyra’s father and the boy dies in her arms. Great children’s literature, don’t you think?
My sixteen year old read it after I did and made almost the same observations. There’s a leering old man who hits on Lyra, a scene that bothered Chrystal: “How can anyone read that and then promote the book as something for little kids?”
As far as being anti-Christian, there is so much in that plot to benefit a good apologist. It’s a tool, just like any other tool. You can see it as all evil or you can take it and see the potential for explaining the basics of faith: For God so loved the world, that He GAVE His only begotten Son…” – God didn’t try to protect His son, didn’t try to use someone else’s child as a sacrifice, didn’t try to run from the Cross but “endured it for the joy set before Him.” True religion is not found in the institution of the Church, but in the attitude of the heart. I’m not a great apologist, but I can see through the plot in Pullman’s book, and what I see is that he doesn’t have a clue Who the Christian God is. He has an idea who the god of the dead church is and he hates that god. But that’s a god with a lower-case ‘g’. Pullman calls it “Christianity” but it’s as dead a religion as there can be. It’s a grievous, evil entity that Pullman writes about and it’s not a new entity, but it isn’t God.
I will watch the movie, but probably not until it is out on DVD. Sam Elliot is in it. Gotta watch Sam (even though he’s made some horrid movies, like “Frogs”). The movie can’t translate the satire and I sincerely doubt it will be as violently graphic as the books. It may be as dark (I hope not, or a lot of children will have nightmares! Hint to Pullman: Stephen Spielberg wouldn’t allow his own children to watch some of his movies. I hope you’re as discerning with your own children).
I let this draft sit here for a couple days before publishing it. I thought of a great analogy as to why I didn’t particularly like the writing. I don’t read Stephen Coontz thrillers. I’ve read a couple, but they leave me feeling “creepy.” The violence is too – violent. But I love Stephen Hunter thrillers. Bob the Nailer probably kills more people than a single one of Coontz’ characters, but the Hunter novels don’t leave me feeling “creepy.” I found Pullman’s book left me feeling sad. Stephen Coontz and Phillip Pullman affect my dreams. That’s all: there’s no good guy/bad guy or good writer/bad writer to my opinion. It’s just how I feel after having read a book. And I certainly do not think the book warrants the controversy it is getting, even if they kill Pullman’s god in one of the sequels. His vision of god is so horrid that it deserves to die and never get back up.
