And the difference between blaming, say, the second world war on “secularism” (or any kind of absence of religion) and blaming the crusades on, say, christianity, should be patently obvious. It is also relevant, because many Christians like to claim that their religion is about “goodness”, and don’t like people like Phillip Pullman portraying their religion as evil. Whereas secularism doesn’t characterise itself as any such thing. You won’t hear your average secular British person, for example, saying “secularism is about being a good person”. But you will hear christians saying that about their religion, and demanding “balanced” representation of a religion which caused the Crusades, the Inquisition, the destruction of multiple indigenous populations, the Crimean war, and all the suffering of its own special brand of misogyny, which included some pretty crazy witch burning that almost certainly cannot be laid at the feet of “multiple causes”. Nor can the religious imprimatur for serfdom, or the decision of the National Party in Nazi Germany to pass the Enabling Law in exchange for a deal protecting the Catholic Church’s property and independence.

(And my reference to the prison population was merely a snarky reference to an earlier comment – good christians visit prisons you know, even if a person in Texas might be in prison for buying a dildo, a law passed by good christians…)

If you’re thinking of the current prison population of the US (an alarmingly high number), it is certainly true that Christian ideals figured in the formation of current penal codes, but how would one evaluate or enumerate such an influence – in particular, what basis would one use for an “unChristian” penal code for comparison? s it

I’m afraid sg doesn’t get off that same hook, either: allegedly religious wars seem often to have whole clusters of causes, and are almost always therefore only partly religious – the proportion of deaths that can be laid at religion’s door is pretty hard to get empirical data on.

Although as a Christian reader I don’t find Pullman’s Milton-via-Blake-Satan-was-the-hero-of-Paradise-Lost act my cup of tea, I wanted to say that that can be done with good artistic effect, but I found Pullman’s version too manipulative. It seems to me that he presumes an innocent child reader, who is meant to “fall” for real, in reality, in response to Lyra & Will’s fall. He doesn’t ask the reader to consider a way of looking at life as Snicket does; he introduces the reader to sex in thinly disguised metaphor. That’s a bit different from having his characters grow up to be sexual beings, which is Rowling’s way of revising Lewis’s idealization of childhood. That’s what I meant by direct conversion attempt. And by straw target, I meant that he presents a character he calls the real, actual Yahweh, but who does not resemble the God believers believe exists. Roy’s experience of institutionalized abuse is not uncommon, but neither is institutionalized feeding of the poor, visiting of prisoners, etc. Pullman makes this point when he says that good and evil actions can be done in or out of religious contexts, but in his fiction the only face of religion is the evil one. So I think Pullman presents a different argument in interviews than he does in fiction.

Reading his books, I agree that it looks like his opposition is born out of personal trauma, which I suspect is why he’s unable or unwilling to break out of the master narrative. Having never believed in any kind of religion, and having been allowed to set the whole issue down at an early age, I guess I can’t quite see why he doesn’t just walk away in relief, or what he’s trying to do from the inside. So thanks, that’s a useful perspective.

As for my definition of art: I don’t know much about it, but I know what I like.

I’m with rm regarding the christological elements of HP: it’s writ large, especially at the end of 7. To Adam I can only say that the Earth is bigger than you think, extending even as far as Europe.

As far as the relative artistic merits of HP and HDM are concerned, I don’t think they’re all that far apart. HP is more mainstream in its borrowings and seasonings, but also more consistent. Pullman’s literary stylings may be (usually) a cut above Rowling’s, but he’s no Melville, nor even a Thurber or Chatwin. I’d like to know sg’s definition of art (which includes Pullman but excludes Rowling and only grudgingly includes Tolkein and the Beatles, under the subcategory, “crappy”). I’m also curious about the field, of which Tolkein and the Beatles were (jointly or separately) early exponents.

SG, Lyra only has that freedom because the rebellion won it for her. Now, her parents sacrificed themselves instead of continuing the fight, which was not their original plan . . . but it remains true that Lyra is only free because the Kingdom was overthrown, and the Republic became possible because of the hole Asriel ripped open in the universe, and that hole required Roger’s murder. In the first volume, the prophecy seems to say that Lyra is destined to deliver Roger to his fate . . . only in the last volume is her prophesied act revealed to be something else. I don’t think the scripting weakness is a problem wrapping things up, I think it’s a structural flaw. If I found myself in delighted agreement with the underlying views of human nature and the world, I might forgive that fault as a reader, but as a critic I’d still find it a problem. Being who I am, it ruined things for me as a reader too. Roger’s death required a follow-up that was, apparently, never even part of the plan.

Darn it; I didn’t want to be the last one on the thread, but here I am.

On a very tangential issue, JKR explicitly denied that Lockhart was Pullman and expressed very clearly her admiration for him (see among others J.K. Rowling at the Royal Albert Hall, 26 June 2003 on quick quote).

Good point, kid.

I thought Roger’s murder should also have been a central atrocity, and instead I thought it was swept under the rug, a regrettable necessity. Roger is a weak-willed cipher in a red Star Trek shirt, so we don’t regret his passing too much once the strong, vital WILL comes in. I may be wrong, SG, which is why I backed away—I’ve only read it once, which isn’t enough to be fair.

But on the preachiness point, Peter, I’m confused right back at ya. In addition to the much-quoted “convincing mistake” line, I remember numerous passages of exposition that Yahweh has provided nothing but propaganda and oppression ever, and there is also the hammered-in point that this is Yahweh Himself, and that He is a Fraud, kids, an Evil Fraud I tell you. And that the rebellion is for freedom. Of course Pullman can do Lewis with a different message, but I thought the preachiness was one of the qualities Pullman hates about Lewis, but I could be wrong; maybe it’s other qualities he hates.

Now, SG, contra my argument, I just realized fully that the rebellion is not what saves the world—Lyra and Will do and they are not in the rebellion. So, okay. But the rebellion is for freedom—I think?—and does require a child sacrifice—so there is my Omelas problem.