His Dark Materials and Our Dark Future

By now we are all familiar with Phillip Pullman's novel-turned-movie The Golden Compass and the fight over its place in a decent, moral society. Plenty of other blogs have addressed the merits of this story, though I doubt that any of them have really done it well. The most reasonable approach to the debate was set forth in nine paragraphs by David Mills in the December 2006 issue of Touchstone (unfortunately the article is not online). This post does not concern the merits of the debate, so I will make you look that article up yourself (and then subscribe--great magazine).

Despite Touchstone's year-old resolution of any moral dilemmas brought on by Pullman's works, the fight is just now heating up. Here is one of the countless articles addressing the controversy. It was certainly unintended by the author, but the following excerpts of the article pinpoint the crises that are being revealed by the debate over this movie:

[Pat Leach, youth services supervisor for Lincoln City Libraries] read the first book in the series and part of the second, and found them “extremely literary books, very well written. … The first book pits good against evil, but I didn’t interpret that as organized religion or the church.”

Susan Steider, young adult librarian at Eiseley Branch, has read all three books and discussed “The Golden Compass” with teens in a fantasy book group. Steider said she doesn’t see the story as anti-religious, but rather it has many positive values, such as integrity, honesty, loyalty and courage. “Most kids see it as an adventure story,” she said.

And later:

[Kathy Magruder, manager at Lee’s Booksellers] noted that while the books deal with a fictional “church” run by evil people, readers need to remember it’s a work of fiction. “A lot of people come to a book with their own agenda,” she said. “You can take any book and make it mean what you want. It’s sad that a lot of people have put so much literal meaning into a work of fantasy.”

Did everybody get the three serious and immanent crises that threaten society? No, not Christianity vs. Atheism--this is much more serious.

First, the two librarians interviewed did not recognize that the book was anti-religious. I am not suggesting that they must denounce anti-Christian books, but these are librarians--the should at lease RECOGNIZE this. Especially considering the fact that it is not too subtle a conclusion. Pullman has made it very clear. The Washington Post has a money-quote:

"I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief," says Pullman.

I know what you are thinking--its the Washington Post, hardly a credible source. I can not argue with that, but this time their story can be corroborated. The New Yorker cites one character in the book, an ex-nun turned particle physicist, who describes Christianity as “a very powerful and convincing mistake.” There is also a good review in First Things (where, despite it all, the reviewer reasonably determines that "[r]eligious people should find nothing objectionable in the moral message"). And then there is Pullman's own website, which at least acknowledges his general animus if not the specific intent of the trilogy:

. . . organised religion is quite another thing. The trouble is that all too often in human history, churches and priesthoods have set themselves up to rule people's lives in the name of some invisible god (and they're all invisible, because they don't exist) – and done terrible damage. In the name of their god, they have burned, hanged, tortured, maimed, robbed, violated, and enslaved millions of their fellow-creatures, and done so with the happy conviction that they were doing the will of God, and they would go to Heaven for it.

That is the religion I hate, and I'm happy to be known as its enemy.

The first major tragedy, then, is that these librarians--professionals in the area of books--can not recognize a very obvious theme of a children's story. I could care less what opinion they have of that particular theme, but to miss it? That is a major problem.

The second problem is the overused defense of such works that "it is just fiction and fantasy and therefore has no relation to real life." This is blasphemy of the highest order! It makes me worry for our future even more than the first-mentioned tragedy. Just fiction? With no relevance to reality? The idea that we learn about life from good stories, that fiction is a valuable tool to shape our lives seems self-evident; I'm sure everyone can think of a good work of fiction that shaped their life. To prove my point, I only need to cite one source--Phillip Pullman. From the WaPo article (emphasis added):

"What I'm interested in is what people are like as human beings, and how we grow up and how we love each other and how it's difficult to live with each other," says Pullman. "Traditionally, that sort of stuff has belonged in the domain of realistic fiction. But why not put that in a fantasy context? I wanted to make this fantasy as realistic in psychological terms as I possibly could."

And from the New Yorker article (emphasis added):

In the eighteenth century, [Pullman] explained, people . . . wisely sought ethical instruction from the theatre and in novels. “We learn from Macbeth’s fate that killing is horrible for the killer as well as victim,” he said, before reading a passage from “Emma,” by Jane Austen, in which the heroine is mortified when Mr. Knightley reproaches her for mocking poor, garrulous Miss Bates. The scene, Pullman said, shows that “we can learn what’s good and what’s bad, what’s generous and unselfish, what’s cruel and mean, from fiction”

So both Pullman and William Donahoe agree on the power of fiction, but somehow people still accept "it is make-believe" as a valid defense. Tragic.

Third, look at the TIMING of whole controversy. The Golden Compass was published over a decade ago. “The Amber Spyglass” was the first ever children's book to win the Whitbread Book of the Year award-in 2001. The WaPo article (from 2001), demonstrates the author's impact:

The critically acclaimed books -- "The Golden Compass," "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass" -- have been published in 21 languages. In the United States, combined sales of the three volumes have totaled more than 1 million. For most weeks since its publication last October, "The Amber Spyglass" has occupied the No. 5 slot on the New York Times Book Review ranking of children's bestsellers, just under the four Harry Potter adventures.

But now, with the opening of the Hollywood interpretation of the book approaching, people are suddenly outraged. Anyone upset with the movie should have been at least equally outraged at the massively popular books (especially considering that protesters were right on top of the innocuous-by-comparison Harry Potter in book form), but six months ago these people did not know who Phillip Pullman was. No doubt society should be reading more books, but we have apparently quit paying attention to literature all together. Perhaps we should go back to book-burning--at least it acknowledged the relevance of the printed word.