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[stsisyphus]

Okay, among the many things that I've done since my last update, I went to go see The Golden CompassI've not read the books and only have passing hearsay about the events of the novels. But regardless, if it weren't for the energetic campaign by both sides of the religion issue (Fundies: "By Jove, they KILL GOD in that movie!" Pagans: "Bet'cher Ass

Comments

[unsi_sempai]

I really disliked this series, because it took a bunch of great fantasy ideas (daemons! armored bears! dust! magical gizmos!) and bogged them down in dull writing, irritating characters, and Pullman's annoying vendetta against the Narnia series. I can't help but think that most of the love for the His Dark Materials books comes from Edgy Atheists (and I say this as an Edgy Agnostic).

[stsisyphus]

This is, perhaps, the first dissatisfied review I've heard of the novels. I found Lyra's character to be just a bit too handily charming and plucky. Danger rolled off of her like water off a duck's back.
Yeah, there seems to be some kind of contrarian motive here, the need to push forward a "hey, athesists can have epic literature too! Besides Existentialists! We like to party too!" Meh.

[unsi_sempai]

Lyra was a brat and no character in those books seemed to have any sort of motivation for what they did, where they went, etc. Things just happened and the reader is supposed to believe that some sort of story is being told.

I tried to read Pullman's Victorian Girl Detective series and was bored out of my mind by the third chapter.

[stsisyphus]

...no character in those books seemed to have any sort of motivation for what they did, where they went, etc.

Good god, that was the word I've been searching for. Motivation. I can has some? Seriously, that was the question at the back of my mind and the tip of my tongue the whole time. Why the hell are these people so damn interested in helping her? What makes complete strangers just so f'in charmed by her as to want to make offers of undying loyalty and aid? The bear, at least, had something he might have felt honorbound to follow through on. The aeronaut? Everyone else who somehow bought into some vague "prophecy" about the girl? What prophecy? Who says that some moldy old prophecy has more authenticity than the vaunted authority of the Magisterium? Why? Why? Why

[unsi_sempai]

I actually kind of liked the first book, despite all my problems with Lyra. The second book was a little dull, but I thought, "well, the third book will wrap everything up and redeem the series." So I read the third book, and it was terrible. But hey, I finished 'em!

This was when I was in my first semester of library school, and I would get books from the children's literature research section and read 'em in the hotel I was staying in between my late-night class and my early-morning class (I was still living in Maine at the time and commuting to Boston for school, and I got a crazy employee discount for the hotel chain where I worked).

[stsisyphus]

Also, I'm sorry I've been scarse for the last few weeks. Drama, life, and the need for hours upon hours of MMORPG playing to dull out the pain thereof.