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

[Neil Ward]

Hi all,

I have to be brief, as I'm at work, but I was interested by some of 
the comments being made about HDM.  

I'm currently reading The Subtle Knife for the second time and last 
night I saw the second half of the stage adaptation, which I won't 
review at length, as I know Tim is seeing it tomorrow.  I will say 
that it was much better than the first half and made fairly 
remarkable use of the National Theatre's multifunctional stage.  I 
left feeling that the six hour theatrical experience had, overall, 
captured something of the books, despite having some gripes (some, 
but not all, similar to Tim's).
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I'd have to say I'm not keen on organised religion myself and regard 
myself as pretty much an atheist.  I found it interesting that the 
story makes real many Christian ideas such as one God, angels, heaven 
and hell, the Garden of Eden and so on.  It's certainly not the 
conventional Christian view of things, but neither is it 
irreligious.  In fact, I found the exploration of love and death and 
the characterisation of the soul quite spiritually uplifting.  The 
messages I took away were that belief and loyalty are good things, 
whilst blind faith and religious power are bad things.  I'm a simple 
soul.

Pullman explores faith, rather than simply pitching good against evil 
through the characters, which may be why he is criticised less then 
JKR.  The comparison isn't quite as clear cut as that, but it's hard 
to pin down somewhat off the top of my head.

On the 'sex' point, the idea of two children getting it on was a 
little unsettling, but I found Will and Lyra's relationship to be 
powerful and moving.  On the one hand, it was addressing, apparently 
in a carnal way, the change from innocence to experience that comes 
with puberty, but on the other hand it was symbolic.  

Neil