The Golden Compass

This is a first look at the first movie in the His Dark Materials trilogy. 

When I read the trilogy, I was initially pretty amazed by the setting Pullman created and enjoyed it up to a point… However, by the time I got to the third book in the series, I was pretty irritated with the author. The guy seemed to have a very clear agenda. I’m not a religious person, and I’m not a Christian, but the one thing I took away from the series is that it seemed to be written explicitly as an attack on the Christian religion. It wasn’t even that subtle about it either. Really bugged the crap out of me because it was so gratuitous and self-serving, as if Pullman had a really big axe to grind (sort of like college-age athiests gleefully hurling verbal abuse at street preachers). Maybe he read C.S. Lewis and thought to create a fictional rebuttal to the Narnia books. I don’t know.

Posted by  on  03/27  at  05:20 AM

I know what you mean. I also don’t like the way the girl starts off as this great self reliant character and as soon as the boy shows up is nothing more than a sidekick.

Pullman is a college professor who teaches at the same school where Tolkien and Lewis worked. And he has a big chip on his shoulder being compared to them. He regularly disses the two writers. Saying how much better his stuff is because blah, blah, blah. 

I think he created a great story and world, but the attack on religion made it, as you say, less palatable. Largely because it was so one sided and one dimensional. People often say Tolkien’s stuff is one sided, but actually, LOTR is a lot more thoughtful and multi-dimensional than Pullman’s the work of many of his other critics.

Posted by James Hudnall  on  03/27  at  09:25 AM
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