Rebecca's Belated Book Three Thoughts
Hello there! Step into your time machine and travel back to balmier climes, when you all were still discussing HDM. I finally finished The Amber Spyglass last week and read through all the relevant posts you all made.
Coming into the conclusion of the epic I was extremely apprehensive about what kind of anti-Christian vitriol I would find, but I was surprised to find that I could appreciate the story separate from its religious commentary. Also,
everydaysushi commented that her problem with Pullman didn't start with his depiction of Christianity but his depiction of character, and I think that's a good point. Since I, unlike her, actually liked Lyra ever since Bolvangar in Book One, I enjoyed her journey. This was a girl who started out quite immature, and then literally went through a couple of lifetimes, and for the most part I found her evolution quite organic.
You know, what I really want to talk about first is Will and Lyra getting it on! Part of me was giddy with glee, because I love that kind of sappy romance. Part of me was squicked, because IIRC those kids couldn't have been more than 13 (even if they never actually had sex, it was still very Blue Lagoon). Of course, that didn't matter when it came to their goodbyes -- I let the tears flow. Usually, I absolutely hate it when an author does not allow a couple to live happily ever after, but I think Pullman did a good job of showing that it was not a cruel, arbitrary decision by having Will and Lyra desperately, heartbreakingly search for and reluctantly reject all alternatives. Also, since it had already been established that a daemon can live in a foreign world for only so long, having that immutable, universal law come back to ruin their plans in the end didn't feel like such a deus ex machina (if Pullman will pardon my invocation of deity).
All right, I guess I should discuss the Christian stuff now. I am a Christian, but I like to think that I am not the kind of sheep that is threatened by the slightest dissent. That said, I did find Pullman's blatant and overt propagandizing a frustrating obstacle to what is otherwise a finely crafted epic about the triumph of the human spirit. (It's ironic that Pullman criticized C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia as "propaganda in the cause of the religion [Lewis] believed in" when Pullman himself does not even attempt to allegorize his own religion, which I would call not atheism but antitheism). (By the way, since I finally finished the whole trilogy I went back and read the Chronicle of Higher Ed article I posted a few months ago. I highly recommend that you read it.)
Pullman's antitheism is troubling not because it is intentionally, gleefully blasphemous (although it is, which is irritating), but because it is based on a willful perception of the worst possible caricature of the Christian Church. Pullman fancied his work a retelling of Milton's Paradise Lost, and it seems he took his villainous Church leaders straight from Milton's 17th century, where society was ruled by an oppressive theocracy and, no doubt, Dumas-ian Cardinal Richelieus. Lyra and the daemons may be part of the tradition of fantasy, but it is the mustache-twirling dastardly Christians who ring the falsest tones.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying foul because I don't think there are real "Christian" bastards out there, because as a PK (pastor's kid) I know for a fact there are. It's just such a pity that Pullman's great point is based on such a ridiculous generalization that it weakens the entire thing. Case in point: Mary's reverse epiphany. What was the earth-shattering realization that could cause a woman who had devoted her entire being to one philosophy to discard it in an instant?
I thought, Will anyone be better off if I go straight back to the hotel and say my prayers and confess to the priest and promise never to fall into temptation again? Will anyone be the better for making me miserable? And the answer came back -- no. No one will. There's no one to fret, no one to condemn, no one to bless me for being a good girl, no one to punish me for being wicked. Heaven was empty. I didn't know whether God had died, or whether there never had been a God at all.
For a character who is supposed to embody the apex of human intellect, Mary was a woman of foolish expectations and understanding. Again, Pullman is basing his views on extremism: Christianity = ascetism, God hates fun. You don't have to be familiar with John Piper and his meditations on Christian hedonism to begin to poke holes in Pullman's smug revelation of Mary's tale, the ultimate anti-conversion.
Even if Pullman did just want to attack those anti-intellectual religious acolytes (the same who are threatened by teaching evolution in schools, etc), why did he bring the actual "Authority" into it? I don't really think Pullman is an atheist, at least not in the way most atheists are. His worldview as depicted in HDM still reflects intentionality in the universe, in the flow of Dust and inflexible laws that keep heroic soulmates apart, unsympathetic even to the wishes of the angels themselves (and is that so different from the Christian law that says all sin leads to death, despite our humanistic romantic reasoning that "good" people ought to be spared?). In the HDM universe, "God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty ... was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves ... [who] told those who came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie." Yet angels exist, yet everything exists... the wizard of Oz may not have been the giant head he claimed to be, yet there was still a man behind the curtain, behind it all.
Coming into the conclusion of the epic I was extremely apprehensive about what kind of anti-Christian vitriol I would find, but I was surprised to find that I could appreciate the story separate from its religious commentary. Also,
everydaysushi commented that her problem with Pullman didn't start with his depiction of Christianity but his depiction of character, and I think that's a good point. Since I, unlike her, actually liked Lyra ever since Bolvangar in Book One, I enjoyed her journey. This was a girl who started out quite immature, and then literally went through a couple of lifetimes, and for the most part I found her evolution quite organic.
You know, what I really want to talk about first is Will and Lyra getting it on! Part of me was giddy with glee, because I love that kind of sappy romance. Part of me was squicked, because IIRC those kids couldn't have been more than 13 (even if they never actually had sex, it was still very Blue Lagoon). Of course, that didn't matter when it came to their goodbyes -- I let the tears flow. Usually, I absolutely hate it when an author does not allow a couple to live happily ever after, but I think Pullman did a good job of showing that it was not a cruel, arbitrary decision by having Will and Lyra desperately, heartbreakingly search for and reluctantly reject all alternatives. Also, since it had already been established that a daemon can live in a foreign world for only so long, having that immutable, universal law come back to ruin their plans in the end didn't feel like such a deus ex machina (if Pullman will pardon my invocation of deity).
All right, I guess I should discuss the Christian stuff now. I am a Christian, but I like to think that I am not the kind of sheep that is threatened by the slightest dissent. That said, I did find Pullman's blatant and overt propagandizing a frustrating obstacle to what is otherwise a finely crafted epic about the triumph of the human spirit. (It's ironic that Pullman criticized C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia as "propaganda in the cause of the religion [Lewis] believed in" when Pullman himself does not even attempt to allegorize his own religion, which I would call not atheism but antitheism). (By the way, since I finally finished the whole trilogy I went back and read the Chronicle of Higher Ed article I posted a few months ago. I highly recommend that you read it.)
Pullman's antitheism is troubling not because it is intentionally, gleefully blasphemous (although it is, which is irritating), but because it is based on a willful perception of the worst possible caricature of the Christian Church. Pullman fancied his work a retelling of Milton's Paradise Lost, and it seems he took his villainous Church leaders straight from Milton's 17th century, where society was ruled by an oppressive theocracy and, no doubt, Dumas-ian Cardinal Richelieus. Lyra and the daemons may be part of the tradition of fantasy, but it is the mustache-twirling dastardly Christians who ring the falsest tones.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying foul because I don't think there are real "Christian" bastards out there, because as a PK (pastor's kid) I know for a fact there are. It's just such a pity that Pullman's great point is based on such a ridiculous generalization that it weakens the entire thing. Case in point: Mary's reverse epiphany. What was the earth-shattering realization that could cause a woman who had devoted her entire being to one philosophy to discard it in an instant?
I thought, Will anyone be better off if I go straight back to the hotel and say my prayers and confess to the priest and promise never to fall into temptation again? Will anyone be the better for making me miserable? And the answer came back -- no. No one will. There's no one to fret, no one to condemn, no one to bless me for being a good girl, no one to punish me for being wicked. Heaven was empty. I didn't know whether God had died, or whether there never had been a God at all.
For a character who is supposed to embody the apex of human intellect, Mary was a woman of foolish expectations and understanding. Again, Pullman is basing his views on extremism: Christianity = ascetism, God hates fun. You don't have to be familiar with John Piper and his meditations on Christian hedonism to begin to poke holes in Pullman's smug revelation of Mary's tale, the ultimate anti-conversion.
Even if Pullman did just want to attack those anti-intellectual religious acolytes (the same who are threatened by teaching evolution in schools, etc), why did he bring the actual "Authority" into it? I don't really think Pullman is an atheist, at least not in the way most atheists are. His worldview as depicted in HDM still reflects intentionality in the universe, in the flow of Dust and inflexible laws that keep heroic soulmates apart, unsympathetic even to the wishes of the angels themselves (and is that so different from the Christian law that says all sin leads to death, despite our humanistic romantic reasoning that "good" people ought to be spared?). In the HDM universe, "God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty ... was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves ... [who] told those who came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie." Yet angels exist, yet everything exists... the wizard of Oz may not have been the giant head he claimed to be, yet there was still a man behind the curtain, behind it all.