Forget Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and especially The Chronicles of Narnia

books:


	• His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) Philip Pullman Laurel Leaf, 2003 average customer review:based on 1085 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

A backwards view of life

I finished the trilogy recently and found it quite thought provoking but not necessarily in a complimentary way. I found it quite intriguing that every good aspect of human behavior was attributed to those that fought against religion and every bad aspect of human behavior was ascribed to those that supported the church. In particular, the church is portrayed as domineering, narrow minded, dictatorial, supportive of ignorance and violently supportive of itself. He uses the Roman Catholic Church as the victim of his attacks but they could easily stand for all organized religion. However, in Mr. Pullman's defense, he does start the trilogy with the statement that the church has fallen, the papacy is gone and the church is being run by a number of committees, boards and other governing bodies. They are interested in maintaining their power and influence more than teaching righteousness and love for our neighbors. Thus, from the beginning, Mr. Pullman has life turned upside down with the good people of the earth fighting against the tyranny of the religious organizations.
If that was what I saw in religion as a whole, I might be willing to join his rebellion but the fact of the matter is that religion is not all bad like he makes it out to be. My faith embrasses every good gift and virtuous trait that he escribes to the rebels. Thus, the trilogy's heroes utilize godly attributes and the trilogy's villains embody satanic attributes which is what every good story should do, but it unfortunately places those rolls on the social groups that they would not normally be ascribed to. From a fantasy point of view, this is okay because we can enter the trilogy with the notion that society is upside down and antireligious rebellion is justified.

I could compose a much more lengthy comparison of the trilogy to my own beliefs but this is not the place for that. Suffice it to say that Dust is nothing more than spirit matter that emanates from the presence of God and permeates all space, it is in and through all things. The daemons represent our conscience or that part of us that helps us to know the difference between good and evil. The alethiometer would be similar to the Liahona and represents revelation from God.

Of course Mr. Pullman has it all wrong when he attempts to talk about Adam, the Ancient of Days, and Enoch. They were not egomaniacs but were humble followers of God. God encourages education and knowledge. No man can be saved in ignorance. The glory of God is intelligence. The Gospel encompasses all truth whereever it is found. We are to learn wisdom out of the best books, learn by study, by faith and by prayer. He who gains more knowledge and wisdom in this life shall have so much the advantage in the life to come.
If there is a fault in the churches of today, it is not God's fault, but the error of the people that claim to administer that Gospel. Don't blame God for man's faults. That is what Mr. Pullman does, and that is his first fatal flaw of logic.

for more information click here

Forget Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and especially The Chronicles of Narnia

I wasn't going to post a review of `His Dark Materials' (HDM) because there are so many already. This was my second reading of HDM and I liked even more the second time. But after reading some of the positive and negative reviews I felt as if I could add something to the discussion on three issues and add some comments of my own on Pullman's apparent themes. Two of these issues are, in my opinion, trivial and the third might be, but it is interesting nonetheless.

If you look on Amazon or blogs or other book review sites you will see both positive and negative comparisons of HDM to `Lord of the Rings' (LOR). This is one of the trivial issues: HDM has no relationship whatsoever to LOR other than both are long books broken into three parts and are the basis for some pretty good movies.

The second of these trivial issues are the positive and negative comparisons to the `Harry Potter' series (HP). The HP series are mostly for and about children and are about magic as in `Hocus Pocus' magic. HDM is about children but I would hesitate to say that Pullman wrote it for children. Pullman in interviews has said that he dislikes the label of `children's literature' as it implies `not for adults.' The themes in HDM are very adult, but I suspect that an intelligent young adult would respond to them and the adventure aspects of HDM would appeal to most younger readers as well. More over HDM is not about magic at all; it is science fiction (a genre Pullman also dislikes) in the best sense. The so-called `magic' is merely what someone might call the physics of alternate Universes.

The last issue, and it may or may not be trivial, is the objection to HDM by Christians. There is no doubt that Pullman intended HDM to be a counterbalance to C.S. Lewis's slobbering exaltation of Christianity (and the superiority of male Anglo-Saxons) in `The Chronicles of Narnia' (CON) and in general a condemnation of some of the practices the Catholic Church. However most of the criticism you see about HDM seems to come from the politically conservative Christian right that interprets any and all criticism of religion as profanation of Christianity in general. I would add that there are also positive reviews of HDM solely on the basis of being anti-religion as well.

I do find it interesting that some of the negative reviews of HDM by Christians are really very long and well written. It makes me wonder why someone would say that HDM was a not a good book when it obviously stimulated them to write several pages on it. I suppose that it upset them and they don't like to be upset by what they read. That is strange as it is one of the points Pullman makes in HDM. In passing he mentions that the church has imprisoned a scientist for coming up with what seems to be a valid description of multiple dimensions in String Theory. These negative reviews seem to follow a general trend on the Internet of a group of Christians who spend a lot of time sniffing out heterodoxy and attempting to stifle it.

My last observation is why I think HDM is exception SciFi and why you should read it and get your kids to read it as well. What Pullman has done is to take the implications of String Theory, Chaos Theory, the theories about Dark Matter and Dark Energy in modern theoretical physics and asks the question of what a world would look like if these theories were true. What if there are other Universes and what would happen if we could travel between them? This is really, really interesting and I think Pullman has done an exceptional job here. The fact that he uses the influence of religion as one vehicle may or may not have been a major issue here, but it does not detract in any way from the fascinating SciFi aspects of this book.

You can read this in three parts as it was published, but like LOR it is best considered as a whole work. HDM is available in a number of editions and I read, this time, the omnibus of all three volumes. If you don't know anything about modern physics it will not detract from the enjoyment of the book as just SciFi or fantasy.

for more information click here

Do not miss this wonderful adventure!

I initially learned of this series after hearing it compared to the Harry Potter books. I adored Harry's adventures with his friends and wanted more of the same British magic. After reading both I realized that Phillip Pullman's work can in no way be compared to J.K. Rowling. Both authors are spectacular in their storytelling, but are so different in their styles and objectives for their works that comparing and contrasting them would do neither justice.

Philllip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy is a complex work of courage, love and betrayal, and conveys to the readers a wide diapason of human emotions and personalities. My initial impression of The Golden Compass (book 1 in the series) was that it was an anti-religious book and the propaganda behind it almost turned me off the entire series. I have to admit that I was utterly wrong in making such a conclusion so soon and am glad that I made myself suspend my skepticism and read to the end. True believers in a cause, be it eternal salvation or something entirely different, are sometimes blind to reason since they see nothing but the burning beacon of their faith directing their paths of righteousness. Their deeds might appear wicked in the eyes of the atheists among us, but are they truly so? Can you compare the actions of Father Gomez in his mission to kill Lyra and spare Will, who is in his eyes an innocent, to a common murderer? Does his unwavering belief absolve him of sin or condemn him even more? What about Ms. Coulter, who did unspeakable things in her life until she finally found the bliss that is maternal love? Does her final sacrifice make all the other deeds accidental?

There are so many questions of human nature that this series raises and manages to avoid giving free answers that don't encourage thought and reflection. It shows that not everything in life is black and white and there are as many shades of gray as there are misconceptions, deceptions and misunderstandings within human character. And with all that, the purity of spirit and love shine through in both Will and Lyra as they undertake the most perilous tasks and continuously find themselves battling for the greater good that children should never have to do. Then again, may be it can only take the innocence and ingenuity of a child to accomplish what they managed without loosing themselves in the process.

I will not spoil the ending of the series, but will say that it was as powerfully and beautifully written as the rest of the tale. All three books were fast paced and captivated my interest completely. I would personally not recommend this trilogy to children and in my opinion they were quite a bit darker then the Harry Potter books. On the other hand, the original Brothers Grimm stories are a lot more gruesome and I've read them as a child myself. Whatever you do, don't miss this phenomenal read.

for more information click here

Dark Materials is actually full of light

I did not think it possible to make an interesting story involving religion, String Theory, Kids saving adults, and war, but Philip Pullman has. Do not worry about the String Theory part, as he never mentions it directly and there is no math involved. However, his ability to create an imaginary, yet believable world rivals J.K Rowling's "Harry Potter" series.

Good story..

Despite all the controversy, I enjoyed these books. The story was very imaginative and well written. I wouldn't recommend it for the easily offended or very religious for obvious reasons (***spoiler alert***) because the whole point of the last book seems to be the premise that God is dead or not really what He claims to be.. but religious themes have always been good material for writers. And there seems to be an emphasis in this series on thinking for one's self and not accepting everything you're told at face value, which is something I think we all would do well to think about in this day and age.

Altogether a very good series!

for more information click here

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, page 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

Science Fiction/Fantasy Series to Get Hooked On!
yound adult series that adults will like
Fantasy with Substance
Great Fantasy Series
2008 Books

search for books
his dark materials, compass, golden, knife, materials, spyglass, subtle, trilogy

Impressum / about us