And finally to Philip and his Dark Materials

[Tabouli]

Just finished reading the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Philip Pullman, as members of this list have been urging me to for months.  Well well.  Interesting.  Very imaginative.  I'll have to search the archives for the long ago discussion of them.

A few musings, though...

...I think comparisons between the HP books and the trilogy are pretty meaningless.  They're different categories of book, IMO.  The authors are aiming at such different effects it's silly to try to argue for one being "better" than another - people will end up arguing for the genre they prefer (Pullman clearly aiming at something much more detailed and serious than JKR, who is being light and playful).

A second musing I had while nearing the end of the second book was where are the book burning protesters?  Surely the ilk who want to decry HP as corrupting the minds of the young and steering them towards Satan would have *major* problems with the philosophy he invented, which *spells out* a subversive position on Christianity.  I suppose there may be some objectors out there, but on nothing like the same scale.  Is it just that HP is much more digestible and accessible (not to mention insanely), and therefore far more "dangerous"?  Is it HP waves witches and wizards in people's faces in Chapter 1 of PS/SS, where they're really obvious, whereas you actually have to look closely at Pullman and read to the end of Book 2 to find the sinister subversions?  Is it that Pullman requires too sophisticated a reading level to endanger the minds of those vulnerable to His Dark Messages (or those who seize upon those things)?

Hmmm...

Tabouli.


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