The main problem with “His Dark Materials,” however, is not the atheism per se but rather its mindless dogmatism. There is no such thing as an open-minded Christian in the series. Take this quote from “The Amber Spyglass”: “I met an angel. . . . She said that all the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. She and the rebel angels, the followers of wisdom, have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed.” To be fair, Mr. Pullman himself noted in a 2000 interview that this one-sided portrayal is “an artistic flaw,” but there it is nonetheless.
The polemic against religion starts quietly enough in the first book, which introduces Mr. Pullman’s truly brilliant gift to fantasy literature, the personal daemon. A daemon is not a demon but more like Socrates’ daimon, a sort of guardian spirit that accompanies a person throughout his life. In “His Dark Materials,” a daemon is an outward manifestation of a person’s soul in animal form. Children’s daemons change to match their mood or suit their purposes (say, from a moth to a wildcat), but they settle into a fixed form at puberty. This change is the crux of the entire series; that is, the series is about growing up.
There couldn’t be a more time-honored general theme for children’s books, but Mr. Pullman seemingly found at least part of the impetus for his work in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series. Mr. Pullman’s hatred of those books–he says he doesn’t mind some of Lewis’s other works, especially “The Screwtape Letters”–is no secret. “One girl [in the Narnia books] was sent to hell because she was getting interested in clothes and boys,” he noted in 2002. Actually, Susan was getting interested in “nylons and lipstick,” arguably less important than clothes and boys; nor was she “sent to hell.” Instead she, unlike her three siblings, remained alive on Earth in the last book of the series. While Susan wasn’t “saved,” she certainly wasn’t damned. As Lewis wrote to a child concerned about Susan’s fate, “perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end–in her own way.” Growing up was not the problem.
In “His Dark Materials,” however, the church condemns growing up, particularly sexual awakening. “That’s what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling,” claims a character in “The Amber Spyglass.” In Mr. Pullman’s world, the church by extension condemns the growth, life and freedom of the soul itself. So strongly does this church want to “save” children from autonomy and the resultant possibility of choosing sin, that it literally cuts them away from their daemons, destroying their souls.
I haven’t read the Pullman series (although every other member of my family has, and loves them). It is possible that Pullman is making the same point that Lagerkvist does in his religious novels (including Barabbas, which was turned into the 1961 movie featuring Anthony Quinn). It’s not God, or faith, that is the target, but man’s attempt to interpret the divine, and recreate it as institutionalized religion. Lagerkvist says this most clearly in “The Death of Ahasuerus”, where Ahasuerus says:
“Beyond the gods, beyond all that falsifies and coarsens the world of holiness, beyond all lies and distortion, all twisted divinities and all the abortions of human imagination, there must be something stupendous which is unaccessible to us. Which, by our very failure to capture it, demonstrates how inaccessible it is. Beyond all the sacred clutter the holy thing itself must exist. That I believe, of that I am certain.â€
I guess the fact that Pullman himself claims these books are distinctly anti-Christian–as he intended them to be–is enough.
I understand they are REALLY good books and likely would be good reading for a mature teen; but I’m not so sure young people–pre-teens–would be the appropriate audience for them.
I really enjoyed two and a half books of Pullman’s trilogy. The last half of the last book, IMO, went off the rails and the ending made no sense within the framework of the story. But everything leading up to that was a lot of fun.
As I remarked in another thread, the “God” that Pullman sets up in the books is actually a much better match for the Christian image of Satan. It’s far from the author’s intent, but you could quite plausibly read the series as taking place in a universe where Lucifer won his bid to take over heaven and the loyal angels are now forced to act as a kind of underground resistance.
All this fuss is over nothing, like the whackafrazz ove Harry Potter and witchcraft and satanism. Yes Pullman is an atheist and a noisy one, a lower case Dawkins. But children don’t care and don’t notice. They want the story to get up and go – and some of PUllman does exactly this. So did Rowling until she came to believe that she was a real literary artist. Has anyone complained that A Christmas Carol teaches religion? Will it cause the young suddenly to become Christians? This is nonsense. This noise is the product of the mediocre mind, which I have always defined as the pursuit of great principles in matters of no consequence. LM
May I slightly disagree with the above comments?
I haven’ t read the books–but my wife has, and she loves them. However, when we went to see the movie together, I was a bit surprised. I had read in reviews that the movie “toned down” the anti-religious message of the books. If this is toning down, I’d hate to think what the real thing is like!
What I found most interesting was the different reaction my wife and I had. She, having read the books, and utterly enchanted by the idea of the animal “daemons” (external souls) that follow characters, completely missed what was for me blitheringly obvious, namely that “the magisterium” (=Christianity) wanted to destroy healthy sexuality through sexual repression (the forced separation of the daemon from its person, a kind of psycho-spiritual castration) and turn all people into robotic, docile believers. If anyone missed the point, the “office” of the magisterium where the polar bear’s armor was kept hidden was (in the movie) an Orthodox Church.
Sure, you can come up with rationalizations. Those who are not religious, or anti-religious, and still adore the Chronicles of Narnia, do all the time. I’m OK with that. But let’s admit that they are rationalizations.
Aesthetically, my biggest peeve with the Pullman universe, as I understand it from the movie and from what others have told me (or I have read elsewhere) about the books, is that Pullman wants to have it both ways. We can have daemons, witches, alethiometers, etc., all very mythopoetic—but there can be no real transcendence behind them. And if anyone mentions, say, Star Wars, well, does anyone think that George Lucas actually believes in the Force? That’s just a story-telling device, a convenience to provide a rationale for the Jedi, etc. No one is supposed to take it seriously. Whereas Pullman really does believe the atheism that informs his books–read any interview.
That might not stop me from enjoying them, any more than Isaac Asimov’s atheism would stop me from enjoying the Foundation trilogy, or Homer’s paganism from loving the Iliad. But I wouldn’t come up with some rationalized cover just to comfort myself.
In re Asimov, he published a rather lengthy bible commentary. I have found it rather good at points. I am surprised if he died an atheist. If so, the commentary was rather a waste of time.