something to read (i.e. His Dark Materials)

[pippin_999]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pennylin" 
<pennylin at s...> wrote:
>> 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. <<

I enjoyed the writing and the characters, though I couldn't lose 
myself in the books at all.   Obviously Pullman wants the reader  
to be shocked but I'm not  a Christian, and my religion
is organized very differently, so the shock value of challenging
Christian concepts of divinity and religion  is kind of lost on me.

I had the same reaction to the DaVinci Code, which I finally got 
around to reading yesterday. It was entertaining anyway, though 
the puzzles were *much* too easy.

Pippin