Tweedledee and Tweedledumber

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.