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From: Farida Dowler <fdowler>
Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 10:38:26 -0700 (PDT)
WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
Speaking simply as one who has reread all three HIS DARK MATERIALS books a number of times, as well as listening to the first two full?st recordings
(highly recommended, by the way), I had a number of reactions to how Pullman resolved issues of the Church in THE AMBER SPYGLASS.
IN GOLDEN COMPASS and SUBTLE KNIFE, Pullman has created a Calvinistic Church in which the presence of Jesus is noticeably absent. The rebellion against a controlling, dominating institution was a vital and necessary one, and I eagerly read to see how Pullman would reveal the new Republic. I thought the absence of Jesus throughout the first two books, and through most of the third one would be of significance-- after all, the Church without Christ is no church at all. But the first time Jesus is mentioned at all is in Chapter 33
("Marzipan"), as well as the Catholic Church. Mary Malone says, "The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all." (p.441) Mary Malone has come from Will's (i.e. our) world, not Lyra's.... in theory, there was a Christ in her world. I thought that Mary Malone's explanation of why she left Christianity was brief, almost thrown together, and undermined the whole point of the rebellion against the Church in Lyra's world.
In AMBER SPYGLASS Father Gomez was the embodiment of self-rightousness and zealotry, of evil attempting to masquerade as goodness. You can almost hear the JAWS theme play as he gets closer and closer to where Lyra and Will are. But when Father Gomez reaches the world of the mulefa, Pullman writes, "The first thing to do here would be to convince the four-legged creatures...that their habit of riding on wheels was abominable and Satanic, and contrary to the will of God."(p.464) While the sentiment was in keeping with Father Gomez, the expression of it came across simply as a pot-shot. At times, it seemed that, like C.S. Lewis (whom he has criticized), Pullman was interjecting his personal opinions about Christianity at the expense of the narrative.
To say that Pullman's writing is gripping is an understatement. While the plots are highly charged and interwoven, Pullman's gift with this trilogy was the complex, multilayered character developments he had in Lyra, Will, and Mrs. Coultier. In the first two books, it was often hard at times to tell who was good and who was evil, who was telling the truth and who was going to turn on us. I actually thought that the presence of the "amber spyglass" would enable the beholder to tell the difference between good and evil, that it would be the "forbidden fruit" in the Garden of Eden. And maybe, with Mary Malone being able to see Dust, it did.
Received on Fri 04 May 2001 12:38:26 PM CDT
Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 10:38:26 -0700 (PDT)
WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
Speaking simply as one who has reread all three HIS DARK MATERIALS books a number of times, as well as listening to the first two full?st recordings
(highly recommended, by the way), I had a number of reactions to how Pullman resolved issues of the Church in THE AMBER SPYGLASS.
IN GOLDEN COMPASS and SUBTLE KNIFE, Pullman has created a Calvinistic Church in which the presence of Jesus is noticeably absent. The rebellion against a controlling, dominating institution was a vital and necessary one, and I eagerly read to see how Pullman would reveal the new Republic. I thought the absence of Jesus throughout the first two books, and through most of the third one would be of significance-- after all, the Church without Christ is no church at all. But the first time Jesus is mentioned at all is in Chapter 33
("Marzipan"), as well as the Catholic Church. Mary Malone says, "The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all." (p.441) Mary Malone has come from Will's (i.e. our) world, not Lyra's.... in theory, there was a Christ in her world. I thought that Mary Malone's explanation of why she left Christianity was brief, almost thrown together, and undermined the whole point of the rebellion against the Church in Lyra's world.
In AMBER SPYGLASS Father Gomez was the embodiment of self-rightousness and zealotry, of evil attempting to masquerade as goodness. You can almost hear the JAWS theme play as he gets closer and closer to where Lyra and Will are. But when Father Gomez reaches the world of the mulefa, Pullman writes, "The first thing to do here would be to convince the four-legged creatures...that their habit of riding on wheels was abominable and Satanic, and contrary to the will of God."(p.464) While the sentiment was in keeping with Father Gomez, the expression of it came across simply as a pot-shot. At times, it seemed that, like C.S. Lewis (whom he has criticized), Pullman was interjecting his personal opinions about Christianity at the expense of the narrative.
To say that Pullman's writing is gripping is an understatement. While the plots are highly charged and interwoven, Pullman's gift with this trilogy was the complex, multilayered character developments he had in Lyra, Will, and Mrs. Coultier. In the first two books, it was often hard at times to tell who was good and who was evil, who was telling the truth and who was going to turn on us. I actually thought that the presence of the "amber spyglass" would enable the beholder to tell the difference between good and evil, that it would be the "forbidden fruit" in the Garden of Eden. And maybe, with Mary Malone being able to see Dust, it did.
Received on Fri 04 May 2001 12:38:26 PM CDT
