[the_old_crowd] Re: something to read (i.e. His Dark Materials)

[pennylin]

Hi --

:::waves at everyone, especially Ebony:::::::

Monika voiced my issues with HDM rather better than I might have, but I just wanted to add to something that she mentioned:

<<<<<Something that always struck me as odd is that Pullman, though being openly "anti-church" in these books, never got criticized the way
Rowling gets criticized. After all, there are witches and magic in
HDM, too.>>>>>>>>>

I find this to be rather amusing on one hand.  It's so clear that the Christian fundamentalist objections to HP are founded on what they *heard* through the media due to the media heavily saturating the American market with HP pieces for so many years.  If they were actually *reading* children's literature in the main, they'd know that HDM presents a far greater threat to their interests than HP.  

I didn't actually know much about Pullman until I had finished HDM.  I read all 3 books on a beach vacation a couple of years ago and came back to see in general what was being said on the internet.  Being a Christian, I found Pullman's world view and anti-organized religion message in these books to be unsettling, and though I'm by no means the kind of person who avoids literature that challenges me to think about my viewpoints, I just couldn't shake the feeling of unease as I was reading them.  I then of course found out that he is vehemently anti-organized religion.  I'm still glad I read the series for myself, but I'd never re-read it.  Like Monika, I also didn't particularly care for the characters, certainly not in the same sense as I do with HP. 

Penny
(glad to see some life on this list again)  


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]