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An expert in children's literature takes a close look at Philip Pullman's novel series, His Dark Materials, the source for the film The Golden Compass.
For
over a decade in English-speaking countries, dangerous
books written by nutters have generated crazes. Some very bad books
have been made into movies, won lucrative prizes, and made their
authors household words. Philip Pullman's
His Dark Materials series is an exemplary instance. Canny marketing and
gullibility, linked with idolatry and
false teaching, have seen to this.
Adults good at self-promotion, who like ghoulish humour and action-packed cloud cuckoo-land fantasies, have forgotten, or else they never knew, that the naked Emperor and Tweedledum and Tweedledee have modern counterparts. In secular and religious settings for at least three decades I have written about this depressing subject. Long before Philip Pullman's books were called works of genius by people without literary, religious, or moral sharpness, I warned parents and teachers about them in the second edition of my book, What Should My Child Read?
So, after forcing myself to see The Golden Compass this Christmas when it opened in Sydney, I am delighted to report that the movie is a dud. It is as confused, disjointed, and intellectually silly as the books. Many Aussie parents, children, and teenagers already know this. Their verdict, which is spreading like a virus, is: BORING! My house cleaner, an engineer in his forties, walked away half-way through. What goes round comes round.
Reviewers, even, have had some sense.
Pullman has wanted for years to
be "freed from God". Film reviewers these days rarely think
aloud in these terms, but quite a few have brains. They don't like dust
thrown in their eyes -- and this is Pullman's greatest special effect.
For well-intentioned adults in their 20s or younger, male and female, who like a bit of action, don't know what to expect from good fantasy, are taken in by modern technology and special effects, and don't mind Fun and Games that exploit their ignorance about the meaning of words and cultural history (eg, Magisterium), escaping to Greater Union at a shopping mall to see a lead compass that pretends to be golden is fine. They'll race, early, to the next two Pullman movies.
That's the idea: suck them in. The movie gets this right. The books are peculiar vacuum cleaners spitting out occasional recondite words like "reprobate". God or Dog, what does it matter?
Although it takes a while for film audiences unfamiliar with the novels to figure out who the goodies and baddies are, modern culture is so visual that some of the signs are very clear. Nicole Kidman, when she first appears, looks like the wicked witch in Disney's Snow White, except that she's blonde and in Pullman's terms is not a witch. The witch is nice and has long black hair. Kidman's closest companion, a demon monkey that accompanies her everywhere, is ugly in ways that Blind Freddy, at age eight, can see straight away.
There are some compelling scenes that work in The Golden Compass. A Great Bear fight between a usurper and a rightful king bear who's got back his armour is especially good. Ursa major and minor? There are Oxford dons who look like Catholic priests, although they are High Anglican. Who, in a world that doesn't know much, cares about this difference? Does it make a difference? No. We all know, don't we, that Religion is bad and the universe is Godless? Demons are God's army. The Bible is wrong.
Many of the street scenes in the film make little apparent sense. We're told that Kidman and the witch have both had lovers, as if this is the predictable human condition. Which unions are trustworthy? What's in a name? Pullman is clever at word games.
Lyra, the young girl who doesn't want to be a Lady and lies through her teeth, is attracted initially to both of these women because she doesn't have a mother. She is being raised by a brave "uncle" who is actually her father. Almost everyone and everything in her immediate environment is dysfunctional, masking incest and other all too common modern sexual horrors, but All Will Be Explained once we've seen the third film. I don't intend to suffer that purgatorial fire.
What is so dangerous about Pullman's books? What will be next, since this movie takes us up in the air and leaves us there in a hot air balloon?
The answer is easy to summarise briefly. No form of literature intended for older readers is more dangerous than fiction that blends occult elements, especially those inseparable from ingrained malice and superstition, with predictable, conventional features of esteemed fantasy such as invented worlds parallel to our own, time travel, heroic protagonists, magical creatures, and objects with supernatural properties, like a truth-telling compass. If, in addition, such fiction includes character types more usually found in trustworthy religious settings, the danger is even greater.
In Pullman's Oxford, and in an Arctic region invented by him where nefarious scientific experiments are carried out beneath the Northern Lights, angels, ancient white witches, heroic dancing bears, and children with protean animal daemons on their shoulders battle for survival in a menacing and fundamentally disordered universe. Readers who lack the intelligence, the depth, and the previous experience of wide reading that protect against unbalanced suggestion are likely not to recognise how disordered this universe is.
After the third novel was released I predicted that Philip Pullman's exploration of sinister realms would appeal to readers because of his compelling portraits of innocence, courage, and imaginative, adventurous exploration. But I warned parents and teachers that his world view rests on the idea that Christianity, and especially "Church", have always been a mistake. In a fascinating conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury he amplifies on this idea, proclaiming his own atheism. The response of faithful Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and others to his candour can be readily guessed.
In Pullman's imaginary world, the Kingdom of Heaven incomparably rendered in world literature in Dante's glorious Paradiso is replaced by a bleak, ghostly realm of the dead and a vague dream of a heavenly republic. Cosmic links are effected by dust. A corrupt, power-hungry Authority speaks for and as "God". Murder, promiscuity, narcissism, kidnapping, endemic lying, warring adult factionalism, hypocritical feints, equivocation, and blind obedience to control freaks are ubiquitous plot elements. Betrayal of apparently helpless souls is commonplace. Children are stolen and mutilated. Many grown-ups who should care don't. They love self more than God. Typically, they think they see more than seers.
In such a context, the author's dramatic, credible endorsement of friendship, self-sacrifice, and faithful love can easily be perceived by vulnerable and inexperienced readers as antidotes to sound religious practice.
Nowhere do readers meet the view that it is people that routinely violate sound Judaeo-Christian teaching who exemplify treachery. Nor do readers meet the related view that humility, loyal friendship, self-sacrifice, and brave support of the Good under conditions of adversity are among the most trustworthy signs of sincerity in individuals who claim to be religious, to venerate Biblical truths, and to know what a loving God is.
Authority and its perversion, Totalitarianism, are significantly different. Being "told what to do", which is what many of the characters in Pullman's fiction detest, is a requirement of life. It is soundly fulfilled when those in leadership positions know right from wrong and practice virtue by making themselves accountable to those with the Big Picture. Sadly, many do not do this, as Pullman loves to point out. Denials of reality have plagued humankind since Adam and Eve. But there are still wise parents, wise teachers, blessed marital unions, and authentically pious nuns and priests.
Wisdom is hard won. Careless love hurts Fallen Man. Nobody arrives at the top of the mountain where Truth resides by proclaiming virtue without living it. Pullman knows that too. The trouble is, so many of his proclamations are jaundiced. He leads innocent souls to believe that adults can't change for the better: only children can. In effect, he is saying that nobody over 17, or is it still 30?, can be trusted.
This message, I regret to say, bears
an unfortunate similarity to loose cow dung. We all know adults who are too
rigid, proud, gutless, and wilful to seek and act upon genuine correction so
that they cease abusing positions of influence. But if we ourselves mean what
we say, instead of merely parroting lovely sentiments, we know from experience that
garbage in our family lines, in others that we've come to know
intimately, and especially in our own minds and hearts, can be tossed away in big
bins.
Susan Reibel Moore was once a Nice Jewish Girl from New Jersey. Now she is a granny living Down Under. She has published widely on literature, education, religion, and culture.
THIS DISCUSSION IS NOW CLOSED.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS.
John James said: “In my country, THe Golden Compass is being marketed as “ in the same tradition as Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia”.”
I read the Ring Trilogy 40 years ago. I loved the books, although I have trouble with the concept of conscious evil. I haven’t read the Narnia books. I have just finished the Dark Materials trilogy. The Golden Compass, as I’m sure you know, is the first book in that trilogy. I enjoyed them. They certainly reflect my world view better than the Ring. Having said that, I didn’t find Pullman to be anywhere near as good a writer as Tolkien. Also, there were too many convenient plot twists.
Pullman seems to view organized religion as essentially Pagan. The god of the Old Testament is little better than a War Lord. That’s how I see it as well. He was the God of warlike nomads. He was a tyrant, a Sky Bully as Joss Whedan is fond of calling him. In America, conservative Christians are enamored of this fire and brimstone god. They seem oddly embarrassed by the Beatitudes, by the Sermon on the Mount. I think that at some point in Christian history it was made Pagan again. Too bad. Christ may not have been the son of God but he was a lot better than you could guess by looking at contemporary Christians.
John James said: “It’s good that you are not advising any of the candidates in your presidential primaries because with statements of that calibre, you’d blow their campaign out of the water!”
It is a fact of political life in America that no one can be elected by being honest. Hopefully, this election cycle will shift us away from the madness of the last eight years. Your recent election gives me reason to hope.
Ikenna said: “It is a mistake to identify the sins of people and governments who claim to act in the name of the church with what the church really is: these are actions which go against what the church (through the ever present guidance of it’s head teaches, things that go against a Christian conscience.”
Isn’t it pretty to think so. (Apologies to Hemingway)
Ikenna said: “When one goes against his conscience formed in a very special way by his religion, he does evil.”
You seem to be saying that conscience can only be formed by religious teaching. Why, then, is the world such a mess? If what you are saying is true, then wouldn’t those who are most exposed to religious teaching be the most moral?
John James said: “Your reference to Catholics and your suggestion that observant Catholics, accepting as they do the dogmatic propositions of the Magisterium, are of such a mindset that they would be at ease burning witches and killing Jews is hardly worthy of rebuttal, so intemperate is it and untrue.”
I don’t think that’s exactly what I said. Witch burning was more of a Protestant pastime. Catholics were more apt to burn heretics. While protestants, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox persecuted Jews, it was the secular Nazis who were the worst. I’m not specifically against Catholicism, although I certainly have reason to be, I’m against accepting any dogma without critical examination. If I, as an individual, accept a dogma in place of my own innate conscience, then I am responsible for anything, good or bad, that is done serving that dogma. I spent three years in Germany in the early ‘sixties. I never met anyone who professed to being a Nazi. We now know that most of them were. Unless you believe that Germans are genetically less moral than the rest of us, you must recognize that none of us are immune from doing evil in the name of unexamined belief.
contd’
“Anytime an individual subordinates his conscience to religion, politics, country or tribe, the possibilities for evil are greatly multiplied”
The conscience as it understand acts as a judge of ones actions. When one goes against his conscience formed in a very special way by his religion, he does evil. When one subordinates his conscience to ideologies that go against right reason or, as you seem to be recommending, to nothing at all the possibilities for evil are greatly multiplied. One only has to look at history to realize this.
David,
Institutions are made of people. A unbiased look at history will prove to anybody that people are weakened by sin. The Catholic Church is not just an institution of people, neither is it just an idea, it is the body of Christ the universal sacrament of salvation and is therefore sinless in virtue of it’s sinless head Christ. It’s members are people, people she has come to save from sin. It is a mistake to identify the sins of people and governments who claim to act in the name of the church with what the church really is: these are actions which go against what the church (through the ever present guidance of it’s head teaches, things that go against a Christian conscience.
David, I’m pleased to see you and I have much in common. You share my confidence in human reason to achive its goal, albeit with some difficulty, and you hint at the possibility that you look outside yourself for help in achieving that objective, though you seem a little reticent in outlining the foundations for your “trust”.
Surely though, Pullman repudiates both those propositions. In my country, THe Golden Compass is being marketed as “ in the same tradition as Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia”.
I think this terribly misleading because while the genre of film may be similar, Pullman completely repudiates the ideas that informed the work of Tolkien ( a Catholic convert) and C.S. Lewis.( A High Church Anglican )
Your reference to Catholics and your suggestion that observant Catholics, accepting as they do the dogmatic propositions of the Magisterium, are of such a mindset that they would be at ease burning witches and killing Jews is hardly worthy of rebuttal, so intemperate is it and untrue. It’s good that you are not advising any of the candidates in your presidential primaries because with statements of that calibre, you’d blow their campaign out of the water! Or perhaps you are advising Hiliary Clinton, as I notice she has managed to offend the African-American community and is desperately trying to put out the fires!
Ikenna,
I’m not talking about ideas, I’m talking about the institutions of religion and the crimes they are responsible for. And it’s not just religion. Anytime an individual subordinates his conscience to religion, politics, country or tribe, the possibilities for evil are greatly multiplied.
From David’s statement about a thousand years of darkness: It is clear that he doesn’t know history or know bad history; the type Philip Pullman and unfortunately many others subscribe to. For a better view on the role Christian ideas played in the development of western civilization I recommend Christopher Dawson and Frederick Copplestone and yes! Hilaire Belloc
Shagga the gumnut Kangaroo said: “Hopefully you’ll think of the sensitivities of others next time before you go on blurting out things that you have no understanding of. If you care to honestly look into the rich history of the Church you will see that far from exuding darkness, she was actually a beacon of light.”
Would you care to elaborate?
To David Page,
No, this is not a joke. I am deeply serious. How dare you make a false statement about an organisation that I belong to and love dearly. I want an apology please as I am deeply hurt by your comment. Hopefully you’ll think of the sensitivities of others next time before you go on blurting out things that you have no understanding of. If you care to honestly look into the rich history of the Church you will see that far from exuding darkness, she was actually a beacon of light.
To Shagga the gumnut Kangaroo,
this is a joke, right?
John James said: “David, Which thousand years ? The first or the second? And ‘darkness’ in what?”
From the end of Classical Rome until the end of the High Middle Ages. Things remained dodgy for another four hundred years after that.
John James said: “Is Pullman directing his readers to an understanding of humanity that dispels that darkness?
‘The Enlightenment’ was suppose to have done that and it ended in the ovens of Auschwitz and the Gulags of Siberia.”
There is no difference between those who accept religious dogma and those who accept political dogma. The crowds that watched the burning of heretics and Witches were of the same mindset as those who accepted the persecution of the Jews.
John James said: “My daughter at University is contending with academics who have lost all hope in human reason let alone revelation.”
I don’t share the pessimism of your daughter’s professors. But then I don’t put my trust solely in human reason.
To David Page: I`m rather offended by your comment about the church and the thousand years of darkness. It seems to me you have no idea what you are talking about. How did it cause the darkness? Did it paint the sun black or something like that? Reminds me of a song: “I saw a red door and I want it painted black.” Or was it like the little red rooster, “to lazy to crow today.” Maybe it has something to do with Jumping Jack Flash. Who knows? Anyway, whatever it is, I think you should apologize to me for hurting my feelings by making a false statement about an institution that I belong to. I think that’s called calumny where I come from.
David, Which thousand years ? The first or the second? And ‘darkness’ in what?
Is Pullman directing his readers to an understanding of humanity that dispels that darkness?
‘The Enlightenment’ was suppose to have done that and it ended in the ovens of Aushwitz and the Gulags of Siberia.
My daughter at University is contending with academics who have lost all hope in human reason let alone revelation.
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