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AN INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP PULLMAN

THE ART OF DARKNESS | December 3rd 2007

Jillian Edelstein

When Philip Pullman started his tale of two 12-year-olds, he thought it would appeal to a few clever kids and a few adults. So far "His Dark Materials" has sold 15 million copies. Robert Butler has lunch with the author ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, December 2007

He had written fairy tales, detective stories, melodramas, thrillers and fantasies. But when Philip Pullman embarked on his trilogy, "His Dark Materials", he went back to the most fundamental story of all: the one with the snake, the apple and the fig leaf. He recast Adam and Eve as a 12-year-old girl and boy living in parallel universes, who meet, fall in love and spend the night together. This time God, known as the Authority, fades away and dies. "I thought there would be a small audience," Pullman says, "a few clever kids somewhere and a few intelligent adults who thought, ‘That's all right, quite enjoyed it.'" Well, he got that wrong.

The books have been translated into 40 languages and sold 15m copies, and that's only the beginning. In 2003 and 2004, a stage version was a big hit at the National Theatre in London. This month the phenomenon goes to another level with the release of the film, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. It's produced by New Line, which brought us "The Lord of the Rings" 1, 2 and 3. By the time New Line has worked its way through the trilogy, Pullman's rewrite of Genesis 3 will have gone far beyond its bedtime-reading, Waterstone's-shopping, theatre-going constituency. It will have become a story known by people who may not even read.

"His Dark Materials" has its origins in the writings of Milton, Blake and Kleist, but if that sounds literary and erudite, don't worry, it won't show: this is a big-budget fantasy movie playing at a cinema near you, and near pretty well everyone else. Its main characters—Lyra, Mrs Coulter, Lee Scoresby—will shortly be as famous as Dumbledore and Gandalf. But there's a difference. Pullman has written an epic with the entertainment value to capture a mass audience, which simultaneously taps into the same profound themes as Homer and the Bible. It's a story with a dark and powerful undertow: a creation myth for the 21st century.

Its author sits in the study of his farmhouse near Oxford surrounded by books, Black & Decker woodwork equipment, and a rocking horse that he's making for a grandchild. Two pugs, Hoagy and Nellie, run in and out. Next door, our photographer and her two assistants are transforming his kitchen into a photographic studio. ("I've never been on a front cover, have I?" Pullman says to his wife, Jude, who greets this invasionary force with warm and unconcerned tolerance.) During the shoot, his broad face and high-domed forehead change dramatically when he dons a wide-brimmed hat (a little reluctantly) and a beret (more enthusiastically): as an author, he would rather be cast as a Paris intellectual than a Tory squire.

On the dining-room table next door, a pile of new publications and spin-offs sits next to a picture of Pullman with the new James Bond. "His Dark Materials" comprises three books, "Northern Lights" (1995), "The Subtle Knife" (1997) and "The Amber Spyglass" (2000). It's "Northern Lights" that has been made into the movie, called "The Golden Compass"—the name of "Northern Lights" in American bookshops. Genesis 3 runs to 24 verses; "His Dark Materials" weighs in at 1,300 pages. Pullman spent seven years in a shed at the bottom of his Oxford garden, doing his three pages a day (no more, no less). About one in ten pages made the cut. The mathematics alone is impressive.



It all began in the last 15 minutes of a wet Friday afternoon in a classroom in Oxford. Or that's how you would want to tell it. After reading English at Exeter College, Oxford, Pullman did stints working at Moss Bros, the suit-hire shop, and a public library. Aged 25, he qualified as a teacher, mainly, he says, because he liked the idea of the holidays. It was the early 1970s, there was no National Curriculum, no Sats and league tables, and "no bumptious ignorant twit in Whitehall telling me what to do and how to teach". So Pullman found that he had time to tell stories. He believes all teachers should be able to tell a story "at a moment's notice to a class for the last quarter of an hour on a wet Friday afternoon". Not read it, he insists-tell it. "If you're reading out of a book all the time, nothing changes. But if you tell it face to face, you improvise a bit, you play around..."

He set about this task in a typically deliberate way. In the first term, he decided, he would do the births and deaths of the gods and goddesses, their natures and deeds; in the second term he would do the origins of the Trojan war, which would segue into "The Iliad"; and in the third term, he would do "The Odyssey". He prepared each week's story thoroughly so he could tell it without notes. He was teaching three separate classes, which meant telling each episode three times in a week. Again, the maths is impressive. "I must have told each story 36 times."

It was a perfect apprenticeship, giving him "an unsupervised, unnoticed little area of ground" to cultivate his own talent and find out what kinds of stories he could tell. Others might be good at making people laugh; he wasn't particularly. "But I was good at doing exciting stuff that kept them listening." He was drawn to a world of "once upon a time", "meanwhile", and "suddenly", of hidden hands and knocks on the door, of dark, stormy nights, shadows and surprises, ogres and-time and again-orphans. He says he couldn't do the storytelling now. "I'd be sacked, I'd go to prison: ‘You're not fulfilling the requirements of the National Curriculum! Away with you!'"

At each school where he taught, Pullman wrote and produced the end-of-term plays, which enabled him to reach another captive audience: the parents. He treated the parents and children as one audience (he dislikes the business of throwing in sophisticated jokes for the grown-ups) and wrote for both age groups at the same time. "I got better at it. It's to do with taking your story seriously, laughing, yes, but never scoffing at it, always taking the story seriously."

His inspiration came from a family-run toy shop in Covent Garden. "I wanted costumes, I wanted colour and spectacle. My source for all this was toy theatre, those lovely little things that you can get from Pollocks. I've got the lot. I discovered them as a grown-up and fell in love with them." Some of his school plays became children's books: "Clockwork", "Count Karlstein" and "The Firework-Maker's Daughter". Go into a bookshop and Pullman can be found between Marcel Proust and Mario Puzo on the fiction shelves, and between Terry Pratchett and Arthur Ransome in the children's section. The only difference is the cover.

When Pullman got home from school in the evenings, his eldest son would be doing his music practice (he is now a professional viola player) and Pullman would go to his shed at the bottom of the garden. He is the most successful writer since Roald Dahl to have worked in a shed. "My real life began", he says, "when I came home from the job and sat at my table and wrote three pages for the day."

No one could accuse Pullman of under-researching his subject: the heroine of "His Dark Materials" is a 12-year-old tomboy called Lyra Belacqua, and Pullman spent 12 years teaching girls of this age. He taught at three schools in Oxford, one working-class, one middle-class, one in between. The working-class pupils, whose parents mostly worked at the car factories, were very direct and let him know immediately what they thought. The middle-class pupils, many of whose parents were dons, had subtler ways of expressing their disapproval. The three schools were diverse in socio-economic terms, but he discovered that within the classroom the same patterns of behaviour applied. There were certain roles that always had to be filled: the clown, the smelly one who no one wanted to sit next to, and the king and queen.

"If you work out quickly in the first couple of days who the king and queen are, and you direct all your attention to them in the first week or so, get them on your side, you won't have any discipline problems because everyone follows them. They don't follow you. They follow them."

The girls in particular fell into two groups. "There were the sophisticated ones who knew all the words to the pop songs and were aware of style and fashion. The most precocious of those had a boyfriend. They'd give themselves airs, they were café society, they were little Paris Hiltons. And there was another group. They weren't quite as grown-up as that and still liked little ponies and brought me presents and wrote [cards] with a big loop, even a heart-shape, over the letter i." He noticed that if a girl fell out of one group and joined the other, she instantly took on the attributes of the new group.

In the novels Pullman dramatises this shift from innocence to experience through the device of daemons. Everyone has a daemon or animal spirit: when you are young, the daemon keeps changing shape; as you get older your daemon settles into a constant form. The daemons are the single most brilliant idea in the books. Pullman got the idea from paintings by Leonardo da Vinci ("The Lady with the Ermine"), Holbein ("The Lady and the Squirrel") and Tiepolo ("Young Woman with a Macaw"), where there seems to be a psychological link between the person and the creature. Six years earlier, in his children's story "Spring-Heeled Jack", he prefigures this idea with a mournful moth who flutters around as the villain's conscience. The first four words of "His Dark Materials", "Lyra and her daemon...", are the four most important in the trilogy. Everything follows from that.

"I had been thinking about the central question, which is the innocence and experience business, and the transition which happens in adolescence, for a long time. I'd been teaching children of the same age as Lyra, children who were themselves going through this physical, intellectual and emotional change in their lives. The biggest change we ever go through really." Once, when I interviewed Pullman in front of a packed house at the National Theatre, he drew a big laugh when he explained what was so special about this age: "Your life begins when you are born, but your life story begins at that moment when you discover that you are in the wrong family."

The only time an author has any influence over a script, Pullman once told me, is when he sells the rights. He later refined this thought, telling another interviewer that you can't intervene in the early stages of film-making because it's like pushing at fog and you can't intervene in the later stages because you're pushing against a brick wall, but there is a stage in between when it's like pushing at a heavy wheeled object, so it's worth a try. Pullman has followed the making of "The Golden Compass" from a distance. The movie's first screenwriter Tom Stoppard came round for lunch. Pullman read various drafts, then Stoppard left the production, and the director Chris Weitz wrote new versions. Pullman read those and has written some bits himself. He was keen never to be officially employed by the film company: "It means I can tell them to bugger off."

I had first met Pullman in 2003 when writing "The Art of Darkness", a backstage account of the National Theatre production. He told me then: "I'm fundamentally a storyteller, not a literary person, if I can make that distinction. If I wrote a story that had enough vigour and life to pass into common currency and be recounted by people who had no idea that I was the author, nothing would give me greater pleasure."

On one point, however, he did express a firm opinion to the film-makers. "From a very early stage I was keen on promoting the idea of Mrs Coulter being played by Nicole Kidman." Mrs Coulter is the elegant, icy villainess, who adopts the heroine. One performance of Kidman's made him want her for the role: "‘To Die For', where she plays the weather girl who's murderously working her way up the corporate ladder." Kidman has made one notable change to the character. "I'd described Mrs Coulter's hair as black. I was clearly wrong. You sometimes are wrong about your characters. She's blonde. She has to be." He is full of praise for Kidman's blonde incarnation (pictured below). "When she raises an eyebrow, the temperature in the room drops by ten degrees."

Newline.Wireimage.com

The fictional world that Pullman creates is dominated by a cruel and repressive church. The Reformation seems not to have taken place, and Jesus barely exists. Many people have taken offence at this portrait of the church. The Association of Christian Teachers urged its members to boycott the stage production. The Mail on Sunday described Pullman as "the most dangerous author in Britain". Most recently, the American-based Catholic League has called for a boycott of the film on the grounds that it "sells atheism to kids".

Is he expecting controversy? He pauses: "I am beset, not beset, that's too strong, I am attended by crazy people." The day before our interview he had given a reading at the Sheldonian Theatre as part of the Oxford Chamber Music Festival. There were 750 children from primary schools in the Oxford area listening to music and readings. A small boy from one of the schools was taken out "rather ostentatiously" before each of Pullman's readings and brought back in again when the reading was over. "Apparently his parents objected to his hearing anything of mine on the grounds that he might go to hell if he did."

Pullman says that people who are tempted to take offence should first see the film or read the books. "They'll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence. It's very hard to disagree with those. But people will."

How will he respond to those attacks? "A soft answer turneth away wrath, as it says in my favourite book." (Proverbs 15:1.) So he won't argue back? "It's a foolish thing for the teller of a story to answer critics. If you're putting forward an argument, you can argue back and demonstrate why your argument is better than theirs. But if someone doesn't like a story you've written, what are you going to say? ‘Well, you should'?"

Two early moments were pivotal in turning Pullman into a writer. The first occurred in the mid-1950s, when he was nine. His father, an RAF pilot, had been killed in Kenya during the Mau Mau conflict. His mother remarried soon after, and the family sailed to Australia. It was here that Pullman first came across comics and drama serials on the radio: "Clancy of the Outback", "Dick Barton" and "The Adventures of Superman". Pullman "devoured" them. He "brooded" over them endlessly. After lights-out, he would tell stories of his own to his younger brother (his first captive audience), not knowing each night when he started a story, how it would end.

After Australia, the family settled in North Wales. Pullman found an inspirational English teacher at the local school who introduced him to "Paradise Lost". He says he wasn't responding along the lines of "‘here's an interesting argument, yes, I agree with it.' I was moved physically, emotionally and intellectually by the language." He learnt "yards" of Milton. When he began writing "His Dark Materials" (the title itself comes from Milton), he realised after a while that he was telling the same story. "But I didn't think on the one hand, ‘Oh, bugger, I'm telling the same story', or, on the other hand, ‘Oh great, I can copy it.' I just realised that in his patch Milton had been working on the same thing. And a long time ago the original writer of the book of Genesis had been working on the same story."

Several times Pullman reminds me that a work of fiction is not an argument. Perhaps it's safest to say that in "His Dark Materials" he has constructed his own imaginative world so as not to submit to anyone else's. He likes to quote William Blake's line: "I must create a system, or be enslav'd by another man's." His story is a rival to the narratives put forward by two earlier Oxford writers, J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia". Pullman loathes the way the children in Narnia are killed in a car-crash. "I dislike his Narnia books because of the solution he offers to the great questions of human life: is there a God, what is the purpose, all that stuff, which he really does engage with pretty deeply, unlike Tolkien who doesn't touch it at all. ‘The Lord of the Rings' is essentially trivial. Narnia is essentially serious, though I don't like the answer Lewis comes up with. If I was doing it at all, I was arguing with Narnia. Tolkien is not worth arguing with."

Pullman clearly enjoys an argument; Bernard Shaw, after all, is one of his favourite authors. He draws the line at discussing issues with fundamentalists. "You can't communicate with people who know they've got all the answers." His measured, sometimes schoolmasterly demeanour, making nicely balanced rational points (that he has no doubt made before), masks a fierier, more combative nature. As he clears away our lunch in the kitchen-bowls of chicken Thai soup and a plate of whiffy cheese-he talks about a flashy young tv director who fouled up an adaptation of one of his stories. As Pullman offers up one example after another of the director's cluelessness, his hands clasp the table and his face reddens: he is vehement in his disdain.

For Pullman, there's a morality to good craftsmanship. As a young man he wrote verse and studied every kind of poetic metre he could—rondeaus, villanelles, sonnets and sestinas, the more complicated the better. He believes that if you can recognise rhythm and cadence in poetry, then you can do so in prose. It's not hard to see him extending the principle of good craftsmanship more generally. A bad politician is one who reaches beyond his or her capabilities, who doesn't understand how societies are constructed, and who screws things up.

After the soup and cheese, he returns to his armchair in the study and his anger mounts again, when our discussion about climate change ("without question the biggest issue of our time"), leads to the war on terror and Iraq. He says that George Bush is "a moral criminal", and Tony Blair has "a great deal to be apologetic for. Not that he ever will [apologise]. Armoured with his self-righteousness, he will never admit, even to himself, that [the Iraq war] was a ghastly mistake. A terrible, terrible error." Pullman has particular contempt for the sloganeering. He says "the war on terror" is "an utterly stupid phrase. Utterly, ridiculously foolish phrase. No one should ever have used it. Certainly no British politician should ever have repeated it."

Pullman prefers to get involved in politics on a local level, joining the campaign to save a local boatyard from misguided development. In his study there's a model of a wooden boat he's constructing. As a craftsman, he pointed out to me, he is a joiner (not a carpenter); as a citizen, he rarely joins anything. "I'm not an activist," he says, "I'm a passive-ist." But he's increasingly besieged by his admirers, receiving countless invitations "to open a conference, speak at a festival, dedicate a library, write an article, join a campaign".

Most troubling of all is the scale of the fan-mail. He gets hundreds of e-mails and letters. "It's a great source of..." He is momentarily lost for words. "It makes you sigh. Either you ignore these letters and feel bad about it and guilty about it or you take the time and trouble to answer them. And then you regret the time you're not spending on your work." He used to reply to them all. Some writers have piles of unopened letters in the corner of their study, but he worries about finding himself at the other end of the spectrum. "The other way to deal with it was Margaret Mitchell, who wrote "Gone With The Wind". She spent the rest of her life answering letters."

Pullman's grandfather was an Anglican vicar, who could also take the smallest incident and turn it into a story. Was there a time when Pullman believed his grandfather's stories about God?

"When I was a small boy, I believed implicitly everything my grandfather told me. He was grandpa. He knew."

Does he feel a sense of loss now?

"Loss?"

Or sense of absence?

"Loss because there's something gone that I used to believe? I really don't think so. I think it's a gain. It's a gain of a wider perspective. It would be like saying do you feel rather sad that we know the Earth's not flat any more? No, actually, I feel rather better knowing the Earth's round. It's more interesting."

(Robert Butler is a theatre writer and a regular contributor to Intelligent Life magazine. He blogs about the arts and the environment at ashdenizen.blogspot.com)

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It is good to know that

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 3, 2007 - 16:21.
It is good to know that 1) Robert Butler has declared the pre-Reformation church to be "cruel and repressive", as opposed to the charming confiscation of most of the charitable assets of the church accomplished Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and the reformers. 2) Anyone who doesn't want to read or hear Mr. Pullman is "crazy". Of course, that makes sense. All sensible people would want to spend money on his books, regardless of their religious beliefs, people should enjoy having their 2000 years of faith ridiculed by such a charming man. 3) Pullman will not fight back against such crazy people. He will only give interviews to major news magazines, attack his tormentors for failing to see his movie, and arrange for friendly reviews (also attacking his critics) in the Financial Times, but he will we not be the fool who fights his critics. More Intelligent Life is fast becoming one of the More Insulting Botches in publication today. JBP
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The reaction to Pullman's interview

Submitted by Operadem (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 18:15.
Living in the US I put up with smugness from Christians that far surpasses anything that Pullman has to say here. If you can't have your "faith" questioned or discussed then it is not "faith" it is "superstition." Then you become the Pharisee that prays loudly on the street corner for all to see, while making sure nothing is said in the world that might contradict you. Beyond the threatened amatuer theologians who wrote in on this, this is an excellent discussion on how someone became a writer and the creative process.
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Good to Know in Reality or Fantasyland?

Submitted by TG (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 19:14.

>>It is good to know that 1) Robert Butler has declared the pre-Reformation church to be "cruel and repressive"

No, Butler describes Pullman's *fictional* Church, which emerged in an alternative history where the Reformation did not happen. In the contemporary world of this alternative timeline, as described in the book, that Church has indeed evolved to dominate the world, and indeed engages in cruel and repressive acts.

Fiction vs. reality: that's always a key distinction to be made before declaring what it's good to "know."

>>2. Anyone who doesn't want to read or hear Mr. Pullman is "crazy".

No, anyone who makes grand hostile gestures in response to rather harmless intellectual activities like public readings of children's fiction is "crazy" -- or, at least, has seriously screwed up priorities, has delusions of grandeur, and probably feels others have as much trouble distinguishing fiction from reality as they do.

Were Pullman's work a bigoted attack on a group or ethnicity based on demonstable lies, I could understand an ostentatious gesture like the one he describes. But the only thing he attacks in his books are corrupt, power-hungry institutions that rely on mystification and superstition to gull their followers into blind obedience.

(by the way, it isn't Pearson Group engaging in that bit of understandble hyperbole -- it's Pullman who's quoted using the term "crazy" in the interview)

>>3. Pullman will not fight back against such crazy people.

Making a reasonable equivalence between crazy people and religious fundamentalists (i.e. those who insist on the literal interpretation of tales of the supernatural, and make empty ostentatious gestures when challenged), Pullman's entirely correct in not debating them directly. Using the bully pulpit accorded to a popular author is much more sensible. It really is a waste of time trying to reason with the unreasonable.

But since you at least attempted to ground your arguments in reason (despite a severe misreading of the passage referenced in point 1 and a misattribution of a quote), I'm glad to give you the benefit of the doubt.

And, yes, of course this interview is PR for the film. At least it's fairly challenging movie flackery, as opposed to the usual tripe about stars and blue-screen SFX. Actually, New Line is doing its best to make sure that interviews like this remain confined to magazines like this one and _The New Yorker_ and _The Atlantic_. Those promoting the movie to the general public (specifically the cast and director) were instructed by New Line to downplay the religious controversy as much as they could. The fact that it's leaking out into the junket interviews demonstrates the appeal of Pullman's ideas and of his willingness to be open about his secularism and athiesm.

In other words, organised fundamentalist religions (beyond the Catholic Church) may have something to be worried about if the film draws more young (and mature readers) to Pullman's books. This is one of the few cases where I hope they're correct.

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The answer is easy; Write

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 5, 2007 - 05:47.
The answer is easy; Write your own trilogy on religion and childhood, as a fantasy, get it published, sell a few million copies, sell the movie rights, help the movie get made, and then give your own interviews. I have done the first of these steps myself, and can't wait to hear the outraged whines of the fundamentally correct, if i ever complete the process. I am more outraged by him calling Tolkien "trivial," but not enough to fulminate about it. Religicos are mighty thin skinned for people in sole possession of the perfect truth.
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A great work of fiction

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 9, 2007 - 05:30.
A great work of fiction about religion/childhood/etc. already exists...The Bible. It had sold SO many copies and is available for free if you can't afford to pay for it. It has a few shortcomings, internal inconsistencies are the least of them.
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I'm not sure I would call Tolkien trivial

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 10, 2007 - 20:55.
but I would say that Lord of the Rings is simple. As a teenager I loved the action, the description of places and creatures wonderful and mostly ignored the dialogue. As an adult I can't read it anymore, the dialogue makes me laugh or groan. Tolkien was many things but a writer of great dialogue isn't one of them. That, however, isn't what makes The Lord of the Rings simple. The simplicity comes from the lack of essential purpose or inner life. We meet fantastic creatures but never learn anything important about them. Why do the elves stick around middle Earth? Why haven't they all buggered off to the West? It doesn't seem to be so that they can fight evil, that only happens with great reluctance. So what's driving them to stay? But why spend time on questions like that when there's swordplay and adventure to write? This lack of inner meaning also leads to under-developed characters. Sauron is evil because Sauron is evil. Gandalf is good because Gandalf is good. Gandalf isn't purely one-dimensional, we do have glimpses of temper, regret and humour. But only glimpses. Sauron is one-dimensional. He is evil, he wants to conquer and that is that. Some characters fulfill their destinies (Aragorn, Frodo) other simply have some adventures and fun and remain unchanged by it all (Merry, Pippin, Gimli). Gollum is the only character that actually changes (or at least tries to) in any way. The characters seem to operate on three levels. There are simple, ordinary folk who are caught up in great events and must respond (the Hobbits). These are the most loved because they are the most like us. There are characters who have a connection to past glories or events (Gimli, Legolas, Boromir) who are doing more than reacting to events but are not central to them. They seem almost like "filler". And finally we have the characters who are intimately involved in the larger events (Gandalf, Aragorn, Arwen, Elrond). It's this last group that are so undeveloped. They pursue great purposes but never seem to have any questions. Does Aragorn ever wonder if the kingdom is really worth it in the end? Does he ever just want to chuck it all and just hang out with Arwen in the bush somewhere? After so many years fighting successive evils doesn't Gandalf ever wonder what the point is? Doesn't the repeated cycle of good and evil seem futile to him? That's why I say The Lord of the Rings is simple. It's a wonderfully imaginative adventure story but that's all it is.
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seems like you haven't

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 10, 2007 - 22:14.
seems like you haven't developed much analytical ability since you were a teen. if you think that "sauron is evil because sauron is evil" etc., you're obviously not reading the book at a level beyond that of a teenager's.
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Characters fulfilling their destiny

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 11, 2007 - 14:42.
Frodo fulfils his destiny? Really? So Frodo is destined to fail is he? Because that's what happens. His heroic efforts, the faith that Gandalf puts in him, the trials of the Fellowship all come to nothing - Frodo succumbs to the ring's temptation and, at the very end, decides to keep it for himself. It is only Gollum's own failure to resist the allure of the ring, as he bites the ring off Frodo's hand, that rescues Middle Earth. Perhaps LOTR is not quite as simple as you think it is.
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Disagree with me on whether LOTR is simple but skip the insults.

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 11, 2007 - 19:01.
Insults aren't debate, just childish name-calling. Yes Frodo fails to throw the ring in the fire so that's a poor choice for an example of fulfilling a destiny. But what' so complicated about that? He fails to do what every one else who possesses the ring fails to do. Gollum attacking him and falling into the fires is a nice plot twist but doesn't raise or answer any big questions for me. Unless Tolkien's point is that luck and accident are ultimately what determine the course of history. As for Sauron, does LOTR ever explain why he is evil? What motivates him? I'm not aware of any explanation and that makes him, for me, a cardboard cut-out representing evil. There are so many interesting possibilities in LOTR that go unexamined. Take Orcs as one example. We know they are a twisted form of elf. What does that do to their minds? Is there a remnant of their "elvish nature"? If there is, does that create internal conflict? LOTR doesn't delve into these types of questions. That's why I call it simple. I don't mean it's a simple story. As I said in my earlier post, LOTR is a richly imagined adventure story complete with languages and history. On those terms it's certainly not simple. Pullman calls LOTR trivial because it doesn't address the big questions of life. As I said earlier, I wouldn't call it trivial but I would call it simple for the same reason.
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Oh, but he has.

Submitted by Valar (not verified) on December 20, 2007 - 01:43.
The LOTR is one large work of fiction. Character development is mostly left up to the reader. Tolkien has painted such a detailed picture of the world that its actually very easy to to do so and understand each character and what he/she goes through emotionally. As far as details of why Sauron is evil, who Gandalf is, why the elves dont go elsewhere etc are all clearly laid down with excruciating detail in the book 'The Silmarillion', the prequel to everything. I highly recommend it!
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I disagree that Sauron is a

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 23, 2007 - 19:07.
I disagree that Sauron is a cardboard cutout of evil. You can't forget Tolkien's inspiration for the story - his stint as a soilder fighting a war machine birthed by the Industrial Revolution. Sauron is a representation of the evil side of the industrial machine and is not at all human. He can't even fight his evil war himself. Rather, he uses his rings (industry and technology) to draw on the power of men. He appeals to men with power and greed, distorts their view, strips their humanity, and makes them capable of pure evil. The books are a reflection of human response to industry and technology. When not used properly, industry and technology are destructive weapons to mankind, human dignity, and the earth. Tolkien goes so far to indicate that industry and technology cannot be wielded properly by man. Since it is a classic good vs evil story, there is also a purposly elusive good that opposes it, and often this good comes from those also capable of evil.
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Frodo is destined to be in

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on April 15, 2008 - 17:28.
Frodo is destined to be in the right place and the right time, making it possible to fail, and yet succeed. His destiny was to fail at failing.
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No, but it is good to know

Submitted by Adam Schroeder (not verified) on December 3, 2007 - 23:41.
No, but it is good to know those things. There is a clear example of simple wisdom coming from Pullman within this article. Much of his reasoning and demeanor make perfect sense, albeit coming from a man of imperfection to a reader of imperfection. And so perhaps this interview appeared soft and light, but there can be nothing wrong with that. Every piece of literature or journalism will certainly not appeal to each of us. It does not do well to insult the author who just wrote about another author explaining why authors need not avenge their criticisms. I have never wasted any time learning a thing or two.
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How to learn more

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 13:13.
Adam, There is nothing simple at all about this interview. It is a complicated bit of PR meant to sell more books and increase movie viewership by eliciting sympathy for Mr. Pullman as being somehow noble in his cause. I suppose there is some learning to be had, as to how Mr. Butler is trying to position Mr. Pullman as a victim of religious bigotry, but it strikes me as quite a juvenile campaign to applaud a man, who is widely considered to be insulting, for conjuring up a reaction among the insulted. In a marketplace less filled with PR flak, customers would be able to choose a movie on its own merits without risk of the Pearson Group declaring them to be "crazy" in a series of tearjerking interviews and reviews for exercising their market choice. JBP
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Religious bigotry? Talk

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 16:12.
Religious bigotry? Talk about Pot calling the Kettle black. There is this thing called a Bible that some people seem to want to shove in my face almost 24/7. I'm sure the Author doesn't have any PR meant to sell more books?!
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A Thoughtful Departure

Submitted by Ryan (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 16:20.
When a movie is released, there will always be a PR effort and Pullman seems to just be articulating his world view because he's asked about it (it's obviously the most noteworthy topic an interviewer could discuss with him - the media loves controversy). My only guess as to why the Christians aren't more angry with Pullman and the film is because most avoid contact with ideas opposed to their own beliefs and, therefore, have been mostly ignorant of his - and his books - existence before now. I'm not sure why, other than their buying power and their ability to steer - and stir - the passions of the easily roused, this antiquated Christianity is still taken seriously. Debate, in all its forms, is surely a sign of a healthy social environment and it's almost ubiquitous in every realm of thought, save spirituality. I don't applaud Pullman for his beliefs, I applaud him for his writing. I suggest his detractors consider trying the same with their critiques.
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John Powers is angry. I

Submitted by Visitor - Philip Davis (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 16:23.
John Powers is angry. I think he is right in so far as there is something smug about Pullman's attitude to religion: he is all too certain, in an easy Enlightenment way, that religious forces are merely reactionary.But I doubt Pullman has to worry too much these days about PR manipulation. In a way his attitude is much deeper and too assured for that. But what I don't want to buy is that Moreintelligentlife is going soft or is somehow collusively dodgy - if I thought that I wouldn't write for it. What astonishes and delights me is that the people in charge welcome the provocative and the angry - even you John Powers (what a good name for you).
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Close but no cigar...

Submitted by Ken Tao (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 18:31.
While I appreciate your forbearance in dealing with the irascible Mr. Powers, and agree that Pullman is not manipulating public relations nor is Moreintelligentlife going soft, I feel your choice of words a bit too hesitant. Were I to attempt to explain in a word the psychological makeup of good old JP I would pass over angry in favor of [EDITOR'S NOTE I've deleted the last word here, because I don't think it's merited—Robert Cottrell].
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Rest assured

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 19:50.
You can rest assured, I am not a very angry person. I am especially cheerful when it comes to scrutinizing a rather complex PR campaign for a rather silly-looking movie project, though not particularly interested in Ken Tao's insights into my "psychological makeup", I am sure I can make it through the day. (However I am a bit peeved that this comments section is missing a feature for carriage returns) I do think that a major media player like Pearson, via MIL and the FT (read the Nigel Andrews column), championing a bile-spitting author as somehow meriting sympathy because many people do not like him, to be a childish pose. Perhaps some religious folks do not like Pullman's work because it is not very likable, rather than the religious folks being "uncontrollable" "crazy" "nitwits". JBP
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How is there sympathy here?

Submitted by VitriolAndAngst (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 21:26.
It seems the interviewer just put to ink what Mr. Pullman was thinking. I don't see any appeal for sympathy. If it sells books -- no surprise there, it's headed for an article that sells more paper. The criticisms and concerns of the Church, seem to suggest that they think they are guilty of having a history of repression, or perhaps, that they want this option in the future. You don't bother taking offense at someone making fun of a bully, unless you pummel kids for school money. Right? Seems that the offense that is taken, is a case of the "shoe fits." And of course, those who are Christian-ish in America, take offense at anything that does not put them on a pedestal, and merely take for granted that their points of view, and the changes they want to inflict on others are the best of all possible changes. Any study that shows lack of sex leads to violence, piety-based sex-ed leads to relationship disabilities and an early and un-planned marriage/and or child -- well, they are just the spawn of satan, not the facts. Above and beyond Mr. Pullman's prose, the religious theocrats have made themselves the breeding ground for every group that wants to take control of government. It's like spreading syrup on your kitchen floor and wondering why you get ants with all that you've invested in sprays.
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There are choices

Submitted by Reba (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 16:38.
One decides which books to buy, usually because someone else has read them and thinks them wonderful, though sometimes simply because one likes the cover art and blurb. There is nothing in this article which I construe as pressure to buy Pullman's books. If you believe they will offend your sensibilities, by all means avoid them. Having only read the first one, I found it to be an exciting children's story that did not shy away from the ways that the powerful (whomever they may be) impact the lives of those without power. Children always feel they are without power, and most of the time that is true, so naturally these books appeal to them. I simply like the fact that the man can tell a good story - something sorely lacking in popular fiction. I could give a fig about his personal beliefs. One has to wonder how weak is the faith of those who protest that a piece of fiction will wreak havoc upon it.
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Weak faith...

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 19:02.
...Is always revealed by a sense of offense at mere comments or criticism. STRONG faa person with STRONG Faith may honestly investigate the comments for validity. Any questions?
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Pullman/Golden Compass

Submitted by Riverwolf (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 19:53.
I think Pullman is trying to have a discussion, through his books and this film, about serious issues. But most Christians want to shut down this type of discussion, and I know because I used to be one. Once you start questioning, they start handing out prohibitions and limiting what can and cannot be said. Fortunately, we have a free society in which issues can be discussed and books and films of all types are made. However, I have a problem when some Christians start to boycott or attack something they know very little about under the premise that it threatens their belief system. This is a free society--get used to it. If you want to control the airwaves and the book stores, there are plenty of "faith-centered" nations where you might feel more comfortable (but careful what you wish for).
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Oh I get it now...

Submitted by Visito-Antonia (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 20:40.
I read this last comment and thought, all right, I get it now. I have always questioned religion, was brought up a roman catholic, but have been to all sorts of different churches and one thing has always nagged me....when I question, "why", about certain aspects of certain theologies, I would get the most upset reactions, "well if you do not want to believe this, get out!", or "You are affecting the others with your questions and I am sure that you do mean to shake other people's faiths" and stuff like that. For me, asking questions and not necessarily agreeing with the answers given, is not meant to upset others. Now, I am encountering this same mindset with our politics in the U.S. People who do not want their faith questioned, feel the same about what they feel is patriotic or not. They do not want to hear that they may not be right in their assumptions or thinking on politics or religion. This would be my "aha" moment, if it were not so sad... I am glad that Pullman wrote this trilogy as it spoke directly to my dissatisfaction with the overall religious establishment. He can be as irascible as he wants to be, as far as I am concerned.
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Shutting down?

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 20:41.
Since when is expressing that you do not like a movie or book part of some nefarious plot? Maybe people just don't want to buy his stuff based on its reputation, just like they don't want to buy any other commercial good that does not have a good reputation. The free society allows people to freely make their market choices. This does not require some authoritarian stifling of free expression. The bizarre reaction I keep reading is that "enlightened" commentators declaring how backwards people are for rejecting this movie. The attack on the free society is most certainly coming from supporters of the Pullman series, demanding that people see his work regardless of its reputation, and not from his detractors. JBP
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Shutting down strawmen

Submitted by TG (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 22:16.

>> Since when is expressing that you do not like a movie or book part of some nefarious plot?

It isn't, of course -- it's free speech. In this case, though, the free speech is expressing a knee-jerk desire to censor someone else's free speech, sight unseen. This is the paramount challenge facing liberal democracies and open societies: tolerating the intolerant as much as possible without endangering the core values that enable that tolerance.

>> The bizarre reaction I keep reading is that "enlightened" commentators declaring how backwards people are for rejecting this movie.

No, they're backwards because they're rejecting the movie based on their own timidity and based on bogus "reputations" propounded by demagogues and pundits who are mainly interested in keeping their personal gravy trains running down a narrow set of tracks.

>> The attack on the free society is most certainly coming from supporters of the Pullman series, demanding that people see his work regardless of its reputation, and not from his detractors.

Really? Kindly point out examples of Pullman supporters making these odd demands. I wonder how they intend to enforce them --gunpoint and lid-locks? Exhortations and encouragement are not the same as enforceable demands -- if they were, life in our consumer society would be endless toil and torture.

Meanwhile, Pullman's detrators are definitely demanding that their followers NOT see his work, lest they end up in a fiery cauldron somewhere deep beneath Lake Averno. We may mock such a consequence, but the faithful tend to follow orders aimed at avoiding that sort of afterlife, even if it goes against their interests in this life. Which is sorta Pullman's point.

[apologies for the large text -- I have to use the Filtered HTML input format leaves the carriage returns in]

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Shutting the shutters

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 5, 2007 - 01:05.
Nonsense (for the most part) TG, Not recommending a product is not censorship. It is expressing a negative opinion in the marketplace, not reaching a paramount, a tantamount or most any other mount. If you don't like a product, one is not obliged to recommend it, regardless of Mr. Pullman's outrage at his "crazy" detractors. How is rejecting the movie timid in any way? Certainly going with the flow would have such enlightened minds as MIL, the New Yorker, and the Atlantic, refrain from the scorn here, but a few have said, -wait a second, he is insulting us, we don't like it-, which makes them "demagogues" interested in the lucrative "gravy trains" of running Catholic Civil Rights organizations, and other such big money business. I can cut and paste 20 poorly thought out attacks on critics of this movie in this thread alone, from "uncontrollable" "crazy" "nitwits", in the time it takes you to read the attack of such minds on free society..read the thread. If only such rabble were controllable...(wait don't they "tend to follow orders")...we could be sure they would all see Pullman's work. Which is exactly Pullman's point. JBP
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Fear and Demagoguery

Submitted by TG (not verified) on December 5, 2007 - 03:01.

>> Not recommending a product is not censorship.

Ah, but they're not just not recommending it -- they're telling their gullible, ignorant followers that they'll go to the Bad Place after they die if they watch this movie or read these books. They're telling parents that these works will corrupt their childrens's souls and bring down the wrath of their brand of Bearded Invisible Sky Man on their little heads.

Moreover, they're making this disavowal of the works pre-emptively, and sight unseen. That's free speech, too, of course, but of a pretty low level of intellectual discourse. That's really what Pullman's outrage emerges from: their intellectual dishonesty and appeal to the lizard brain.

>> How is rejecting the movie timid in any way?

Fear of the trivial unknown based on insufficient evidence. It's timid when one is accepting a non-recommendation based on nothing substantive. When I give a particular product or serivce or course of action a non-recommendation (and I do this frequently as part of my job), it's based on empirical observations and testing. And while some of my clients and employers might accept the non-recommendation simply because it's me making it, I'm always ready to back it up.

So I'd have slightly more respect for those listening to self-appointed moral and cultural arbiters if the latter actually bothered to watch the film and/or read the books before issuining their judgements. There are many reasons not to go to any given film, but this is a pretty sorry, sheep-like one. Especially given the nature of the flock's so-called opinion leaders.

>> Certainly going with the flow would have such enlightened minds as MIL, the New Yorker, and the Atlantic, refrain from the scorn here, but a few have said, -wait a second, he is insulting us, we don't like it-, which makes them "demagogues" interested in the lucrative "gravy trains" of running Catholic Civil Rights organizations, and other such big money business.

A very few, very loud-mouthed thugs like Bill Donohue of America's Catholic League -- a glorified mass mailing list with a "leader" whose main occupation is skulking in midtown Manhattan, waiting for a call on his mobile from sensation-hungry media outlets that lazily equate ownership of a largely inactive membership roll with representation of the Catholic community at large.

I don't know how much money Donohue makes, but he'd be making a lot less without the presence of an ignorant and desparate audience and media platforms that indulge his brand of shallow opportunism. Under the terms of free speech he'd be glad to deny others if he had his druthers, he's entitled to make their opinions known. But let's not accord Donohue and his ilk respect or pretend he's in this for anything other than a paycheque, media exposure, and the ego boost that comes from being a leader (granted, of a rather inactive membership roll). Heck, even the Catholic Church itself tries to keep its distance from this mope, and the Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a recommendation for the film (which someone actually watched in advance of issuing an opinion).

>> I can cut and paste 20 poorly thought out attacks on critics of this movie in this thread alone

Perhaps so, but none of them have demanded that people be made to see the film. as you claimed. How about copying and pasting just one example from the thread to date supporting your claim?

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I'll stop at 5

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 5, 2007 - 12:55.
TG, In your post alone there are 5 insults hurled at anyone who dares not see the film 1)Gullible 2)Ignorant 3)Intellectual Dishonesty 4)Lizard Brain 5)Ilk If this is what you think of people who may not want to see the film...do you really think that your unpleasantries will bring them around to your enlightened status? I'll actually agree with you, it would be a stronger argument if the critics of the film would actually see it before smacking it. I'll disagree with you, in that a critic working for the USCCB does not speak for the USCCB, and certainly does not represent the Catholic Church, any more than any of the various critics of the film represent the Church. There are some advantages to having a variety of opinions represented on prudential issues, rather than demanding everyone follow your demands regardless of personal beliefs. JBP
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>> TG, In your post alone

Submitted by TG (not verified) on December 5, 2007 - 16:06.

>> TG, In your post alone there are 5 insults hurled at anyone who dares not see the film 1)Gullible 2)Ignorant 3)Intellectual Dishonesty 4)Lizard Brain 5)Ilk

Those insults are hurled at anyone who "dares" not see the film on the basis of demands made by someone who himself has not seen the film. I mean, really, even Joe Breen actually watched movies before applying the Hays Code to them. The people decrying this movie are too lazy to do even that, which makes those taking their recommendations worthy of all of those "insults."

("Ilk" means a kind of person, and while it does often carry a perjorative sense it isn't in and of itself an insult; "intellectual dishonesty" is more of an observation than an insult; the "lizard brain" is something we all have, but not all of us succumb to; gullibility and ignorance are conditions that make one susceptible to religious fundamentalism. But take them all as insults if you like)

In any case, I'm not sure why you bring this up. Are you claiming those insults somehow amount to a demand that everyone see this film or read the books?

>> If this is what you think of people who may not want to see the film...do you really think that your unpleasantries will bring them around to your enlightened status?

I'm not looking to make converts here, simply puncturing holes in spurious and intellectually bankrupt argument. Not to mention having some fun at the expense of bullying prigs like Bill Donohue.

Don't tell me you're trying to bring the people here around to your status, whatever it may be. Good luck with that.

>> I'll disagree with you, in that a critic working for the USCCB does not speak for the USCCB, and certainly does not represent the Catholic Church

Certainly the critic doesn't represent the Church at large, but you can bet that the USCCB is the sort of organisation that has pretty tight controls on whether or not a publication is at least minimally in line with its core values.

>> There are some advantages to having a variety of opinions represented on prudential issues, rather than demanding everyone follow your demands regardless of personal beliefs

Indeed. And while you still have yet to provide one example from this thread of someone doing that, Pullman's detractors are definitely doing that. Fortunately, that tactic usually backfires, and if the film is a hit I'm hoping it will draw more intelligent, thoughtful, and questioning adolescents to Pullman's books, and away from organised religion.

I'll leave it at that.

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Well, of course

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 5, 2007 - 16:47.
"Are you claiming those insults somehow amount to a demand that everyone see this film or read the books?", yes, the public will be insulted over and over again if it rejects the film. Punctutre what? You are just insulting a broad group of people gratuitously. What good could come of that? My point, which is not all that hard to take, is that many people who do not want to watch this movie, also are not "crazy", "ignorant", "gullible" etc. They may simply not want to watch this movie. The USCCB having tight controls over much of anything is laughable. They are constantly under fire (and in litigation) for not controlling things. "And while you still have yet to provide one example" This thread is full of vile insults towards anyone who may not want to see the movie, many of which you authored. People have a variety of ways to decide what movie to see. Why condemn them for it? JBP
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More Distinctions

Submitted by TG (not verified) on December 5, 2007 - 21:05.

>> "Are you claiming those insults somehow amount to a demand that everyone see this film or read the books?", yes, the public will be insulted over and over again if it rejects the film.

Here's the distinction, which it seems may have been too fine for you: I condemn a particular excuse for rejecting the film, rather than rejecting the film. I hope this clarifies similar to the distinction I made between fiction and reality regarding your misreading of Butler, above.

[by the way, it seems that Pullman's fictional Church/Magisterium is intented to represent a fusion of the worst aspects of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, so it's not really fair to say Pullman is particularly bigoted toward real-life pre- or post-Reformation Catholics. But fairness and close reading isn't a priority for demagogues and pundits]

To make it crystal clear, I'm not condemning the act itself, but rather the motivation behind the act. Act ... motivation; act ... motivation. Hope you see the difference.

That said, yes, I'm comfortable insulting that portion of the public that blindly follows the recommendations of authoritarian thugs like Donohue -- if they treat my words like sticks and stones, they just demonstrate how thin-skinned religious fundamentalists are. Unlike them, I'm not looking for converts.

And again, I'm not demanding they see the firm, just asking that they make a decision on a basis other than "this guy who supposedly represents all Catholics/Muslims/Scientologists/etc and never saw the movie/cartoon/book/etc says so."

Or do you think that's a laudable and reasonable basis on which to reject a film? I don't, and that's why I have disdain for them.

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Well that certainly is a clear explantion

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 5, 2007 - 22:34.
TG, You may have a career in the legal trade with that series of incomprehensible statements, defining the fine line with which you used such a broad brush to paint a rather unique definition of motivation. Having just spoken to a rather liberal evangelist here in Chicago who has both seen the film and read the books, I was assured that the film was most spitefully anti-Christian, in much the same manner as Bill Donohue has described it in his "lucrative" position. Maybe Donohue did more research than you have on this subject. Ever given any thought to the odd chance that film actually is hateful as described, and that a sensible person may not want to be the receptor of Pullman's bile? Why waste your money on seeing a mean spirited assault on your children, when Enchanted is in the theater? JBP
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Spitefully Anti-Christian

Submitted by TG (not verified) on December 6, 2007 - 03:11.

That's quite a response from your friend. Everything I've researched about the film's production indicated that New Line and the director/screenwriter did everything they could to downplay the religious aspect: no mention of JC, no crucifixes or other blatant religious imagery, the Magisterium as more of a political/state organisation with vague clerical style than an overtly religious one. And the first book didn't make the anti-religion message as explicit as the later ones did in any case. All of which should have made it relatively easy to avoid offending liberal Christians who hadn't read the full trilogy, and maximise those boxoffice dollars (always job 1 for the studios).

Which leads me to believe that either your definition of "liberal" might be a bit ... different the usual due to your own ideological views, or that the filmmakers have decided to take a real risk and try to put Pullman's message against organised religion right out there. I'm really not sure which is more likely, so I'll have to wait an see the film myself this weekend to see which pleasant surprise I'll get.

In the meantime, I'd be genuinely interested to hear your friend's specific reasons why the movie (taken apart from the books) is "spitefully anti-Christian" (as opposed to the mildly anti-religion film I'm expecting) -- at least he's operating on an actual screening of the movie. No need to worry about spoilers, since I've read the books, too.

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Review will be upcoming on YouTube

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 6, 2007 - 12:42.
He posts his movie reviews on You Tube. I will link you to it when it comes up. He was reviewing the revisionist (suprise the religious folks are all baddies in this version!) version of Beowulf yesterday. Perhaps Pearson can arrange another series of puff pieces where the author of the Beowulf script can tell us since religious people are so crazy, the Beowulf story had to be changed to more accurately represent the "cruel and repressive" pre-Reformation Church. JBP
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Try Reading Beowulf

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 11, 2007 - 00:36.
Speaking as a Beowulf scholar . . . try actually reading Beowulf before making claims about it. The Christian elements were added long after the story circulated, in fact they were added by the monk who wrote the oral story down. Practically all scholarship on the poem has it circulating orally for over a century among "pagan" Anglo-Saxons before a Christian monk worte it down and added his own moralizing (haphazardly, I might add). More importantly, the Chritian additions have absolutely no effect on the story itself. Both of these facts can be seen through reading the piece in the original Old English/Anglo-Saxon, in which the Christian additions don't quite fit in meter and other technical elements.
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Done read it

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 11, 2007 - 18:12.
TRB, I read Beowulf 25 years ago or so, and was able to make it through without actually becoming a Beowulf scholar, and without spouting unfounded unpleasantries at other people who may or may not have read the book. I did not realize that Christians came in and added things that "have no effect on the story itself". Amazing how many people have been able to read the story rather than listening to the oral version of it, despite the Christianity of the scribe. So tell me, before making claims about it, as you know it is a pre-Christian story, how is it that the Christians show up as baddies in the movie? JBP
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Uh...

Submitted by David Windrim (not verified) on December 9, 2007 - 04:15.

Mr. John Powers - In response to your friend (and the Appeal to Authority you succumb to in citing him):

As a practicing Roman Catholic who quite enjoyed the film, I found its religious angle a) sidelined to more interesting concerns of Nicole Kidman wearing backless dresses and Ian McKellen as King of the Polar Bears, b) closer in spirit to Manicheanism (with an equally powerul 'counterforce' to the Church providing a reciprocal universal structure) than any dogma alive to be offended, and c) less of a "Church = Evil" diatribe and more of a rigorous examination of how doctrine can be corrupted by self-interested officials. (If one Church-Goer cancels out another, the judgment of the film here stands moot.)

My first point is flippant, and my second very tenuous, but I think, at least as far as the third idea goes, we can agree that most religions (and especially my own Church) have suffered their share of infamy, deserved and otherwise, from the actions of fallible men attempting to embody a difficult spiritual discipline. While I'm here, we might agree that said religions have also historically been a good place to find censorship and ideologically motivated urges towards censorship of works sight-unseen. In this context, to imagine a further occurrence of the auto-da-fé spirit in the Post-Modern Age is not entirely unreasonable.

Although he is evidently an interested party (as, were we asked "How's $10 mill a picture sound for your books?", we all would be), I will also advise that the film is not "Pullman's bile" since he had (in comparing it to the books) as much to do with the finished product as he did with the first "Die Hard" film. Regarding the interview: as far as puff pieces go, it at least cites some of its sources. Otherwise, it is similarly inconsequential.

Thus, to the novels, the only real source of Pullman's involvement in the whole imbroglio. Sir - you connote a story (which I assume you must have read to describe it as negatively as you do) where a (fictional) religious organization want to sever certain (fictional) children from their (fictional) spirit animals cum immortal souls as a "mean-spirited assault" on children. On one level, I am tempted to ask if the destruction of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant was a veiled metaphor for the destruction of the Monasteries by the Tudors. More seriously, assigning so 1:1 an authorial intent to mock and shame requires a more rigorous critical examination of the relationship between sign and signifier. And on the one hand, the children in the book are heroic figures of compassion, forgiveness, surprising insight and growing maturity - learning by the end that early successes from cunning lies cannot persist in the face of the less pretty but more powerful spirit of the truth, that self-gratification is never ultimately satisfying, and that only love and trust have any meaning in a troubled and difficult world.

"Enchanted", while charming, teaches children that to marry a handsome, loving Prince could be less desirable than the harder choice - to marry a handsome, loving Wealthy Doctor.

On another level, the actual content of the book is surprisingly neutral on the issue of religion - the idea of a pseudo-atheist egalitarian "Republic of Heaven" where "Do as thou wilt shall be the only law" becomes as ridiculous and untenable, in the end, as the bunch of jacked-up Cardinal Richilieus running the Magisterium, and indeed arguably more ruthless. Many characters point out that belief is important in their lives, and wish only the chance to express their own spiritual sense free of external restrictions on intellectual exploration. The Magisterium church is not destroyed, but reverts to an early Christian model of good acts, modesty, and poverty. Elsewhere, fairly interesting thought-experiments (what if God, like Tithonus, could age but never die? would you want to spend eternity ANYWHERE, even Heaven? what is the purpose of evil and sin in a world run by God?) are literalized using a charming fantasy paradigm.

The novels ultimately deal with the painful realization that at a certain point in adolescence, parents, mentors and friends can no longer protect you or determine your path and you must try to stand alone and take responsibility for yourself. That some are equal to this challenge and grow from it and that some are not and are paralyzed is neither hateful, nor really fictional. Pullman merely puts higher stakes on the usual bildugsroman's test of a child's education in the subject of their own life for the purpose of our readerly entertainment.

Also, I must ask - several times in your comments you have cited 'widely held' opinions that these books have no merit, including your own. You don't ask, to close this comment, whether it might be possible that a 'sensible' person might wish to avoid the film, but rhetorically demand whether it could be possible that he would do otherwise. Widely reputable authorities (the Newberry Medal comes to mind) picked the book from obscurity for a major award, and reputable Children's Literature studies at major universities (McGill in Canada and Columbia in NYC among them) incorporate it into their studies. That the work is not to your taste is manifest; that it is shallow, or wholly antagonistic, or at the very least not sophisticated and thought-provoking in its ethical exploration of human existence - not worthy of study, and perhaps a trip to the film for comparison - you have perhaps not made as logically clear.

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That only took 920 words

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 9, 2007 - 22:12.
DW, After your 920 words, I am not sure you have read any of the other comments, rather you had a column and a half that demanded to be released regardless of any other topic in discussion. As you conjure Pullman was not much involved in making this film, it seems odd that MIL would interview him about it. That I do not like the movie is harder to fathom, I have not seen it. I typed nothing close to saying the books have "no merit". I did not read them. I have read they are unpleasant, and the author sure seems charmless and hateful in his soppy interview. You seem a bit shocked that fiction can be hate-filled, or that anyone could possibly take offense to fictitious portrayals. That would be news to many other groups gratuitously offended in fictional works (Hell, The Untouchables was taken off TV in the US for being anti-Italian, not for being unpopular). Many people don't like being insulted, regardless of the colorings of fiction. So, you like the movie, great! Go see it and recommend it to your friends. The author comes across as a ninny in this interview, (and his defenders full of vinegar), so I probably won't see it. JBP
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Only 920 words, eh?

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 10, 2007 - 16:05.
John Powers, how many words have you used in your one-sided, ignorant argument in an attempt to dominate the discourse? If you don't like the idea of this movie, fine. Don't see it. Enough already. It is perplexing that you can spend this much time and energy disputing plot elements of and intention behind a movie you haven't seen and of books you haven't read. As someone who has read the book, and who has seen the movie, I found it quite enjoyable. Having attended a friend's ordination as deacon the prior weekend, if you want some religious credentials to be thrown around.
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Charming folks

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 12, 2007 - 03:37.
I was somewhere around 2200 the last time I counted. The dazzling rhetoric of such Visitors chanting "one-sided, ignorant" when they disagree with a post, surely give question to the titled claim of More Intelligent Life. To the best of my knowledge, I have yet to dispute "a plot element" or "intention behind a movie" nor have I liked or disliked the "idea of this movie" yet, the highly credentialed Visitor on sabbatical from attending the Deacon, has decided to insert me into this plot. I have none, other than to deliver a friendly smack to Pearson and Pullman. JBP
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Your fifth "insult", Ilk, is

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 9, 2007 - 22:57.
Your fifth "insult", Ilk, is not an insult. It just means group.
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In response to "Pullman/Golden Compass"

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 5, 2007 - 20:50.
Let me start by saying I'm a Christian. I'm not into closing any discussion. Consider this though: The "disscussion" in Pullman's writings is one-sided. He presents themes which support HIS worldview, and no other. This is not a dialogue, but a monologue.
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Monlogues

Submitted by TG (not verified) on December 6, 2007 - 03:20.

>> He presents themes which support HIS worldview, and no other. This is not a dialogue, but a monologue.

Of course -- that's the prerogative of authors, including those of that other famous fantasy series, the Old and New Testaments.

One part of Pullman's monologue, though, is a strong exhortation to question and challenge authority -- presumably including his own. He only asks that the quality of intellectual discourse be elevated above what we've seen thus far regarding the public controversy over the books and film.

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bravo Pullman. But rethink Tolkien please

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 20:15.
...read Tom Shippey's analysis of Tolkien to understand LoTR's worth and moral depth. Pullman is too dismissive of his Oxford rival. But I congratulate Pullman on his own work. I know people who join churches so they can turn off their brains; maybe "The Golden Compass" will remind them that no institution is perfect, and they need to think for themselves.
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Here's what the US

Submitted by DWSimon (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 20:42.
Here's what the US Conference of Catholic Bishops had to say about His Dark Materials: "Whatever author Pullman's putative motives in writing the story, writer-director Chris Weitz's film, taken purely on its own cinematic terms, can be viewed as an exciting adventure story with, at its core, a traditional struggle between good and evil, and a generalized rejection of authoritarianism. To the extent, moreover, that Lyra and her allies are taking a stand on behalf of free will in opposition to the coercive force of the Magisterium, they are of course acting entirely in harmony with Catholic teaching. " John Powers is entitled to his opinion, I suppose. But many people, even RELIGIOUS people, think you're entirely wrong.
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Since I haven't taken much of a stance

Submitted by John Powers (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 22:21.
Since I haven't taken much of a stance on Pullman's work, I am not sure how I could be "entirely wrong". It may be a good movie, I have not seen it, nor have very many other people. My stance is against the mindless PR puffery by MIL (and the FT) hatched with the loaded premise that the Reformation rescued Christianity from a "cruel and repressive church", and the punk reaction that Pullman postures when someone dares not want to see his movie, because of his reputation as someone who attacks Christianity. Posting anything that could be construed as remotely pro-Christian on a secular blog brings out most curiously intrusive adults, distressed by the "smugness" of Christians, the "theocrats that want to take control of government", the media control of "faith centered" nations, religious folks "turning off their brains", regardless of my original post that has little to do with the actual film (or book) itself. JBP
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When Pullman got home from

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on January 14, 2008 - 07:16.
When Pullman got home from school in the evenings, his eldest son would be doing his music practice (he is now a professional viola player) and Pullman would go to his shed at the bottom of the garden. He is the most successful writer since Roald Dahl to have worked in a shed. "My real life began", he says, "when I came home from the job and sat at my table and wrote three pages for the day."
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That difficult third volume

Submitted by Nathan Myers (not verified) on December 4, 2007 - 23:38.
For those who have not yet read "His Dark Materials", I would like to suggest omitting the third volume. It was a serious disappointment, and poisoned my ecstatic impression of the first two. I wonder if the author didn't just get tired of the whole project somewhere in the third volume. In any case, the first two volumes provide more memorable imagery (armored bears!) than any hundred other authors' best work.
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That difficult (but rewarding) third volume

Submitted by JT (not verified) on December 6, 2007 - 17:14.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS (maybe) Nathan, I'm interested to know what you didn't like about The Amber Spyglass. Though the second novel is probably the most beautifully and tightly written, and the first may be the most adventurous, to me the third novel was where all of the ideas came together. It seems to me that the entire point of the series is embedded in that third novel, especially the end. Why didn't you like it? Also, without making too much fun, it is funny that you're essentially saying, "I like the Garden of Eden story, except for the part with the snake and the apple. It's better if you stop before that nonsense."
  • reply
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