. . . but you know, it's just the beginning of the joy that will be the epic culture clash that hits America when the movie is released. If you're not familiar with 'The Golden Compass' or the trilogy from which it is the first, here's what The Catholic League of extraordinary gentlemen have to say about both:
"The trilogy, His Dark Materials, was written to promote atheism and denigrate Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism. The target audience is children and adolescents. Each book becomes progressively more aggressive in its denigration of Christianity and promotion of atheism: The Subtle Knife is more provocative than The Golden Compass and The Amber Spyglass is the most in-your-face assault on Christian sensibilities of the three volumes."
Read the rest here. 'The Golden Compass' movie comes out this winter.
The thing is, the Catholic league is exactly accurate in their assessment of the goal of the books. It's not like Harry Potter, where godless themes can be perhaps subtly alluded to (Time Magazine article 'Who Dies in Harry Potter? God.'). In His Dark Materials we aren't even talking about godless themes woven into the literal world of the book. The world of the books is anti-god.
As long as we're on Philip Pullman's books, let's check out what kind of man writes atheist fantasy books for kids. British men. Obviously.
Pullman is right in step with other British atheist smarty-pantses like Dick Dawkins and Chris Hitchens, in that he's kind of a prick. Here are some great quotes from Pullman's website:
Q: What inspires you?
A: Three things. (1) Money. I do this for a living. If I don't write well, I won't earn enough money to pay the bills. (2) The desire to make some sort of mark on the world - to make my name known. To leave something behind that will last a little longer than I do. (3) The sheer pleasure of craftsmanship: the endlessly absorbing delight of making things - in my case, stories - and of gradually learning more about how they work, and how to make them better.
Q: Who do you write for - children or adults?
A: Myself. No-one else. If the story I write turns out to be the sort of thing that children enjoy reading, then well and good. But I don't write for children: I write books that children read. Some clever adults read them too.
Money is his inspiration, as is his desire to make his mark on the world, and he only writes for himself!?
Ayn Rand would love Philip Pullman.
1 comment:
I am in a writers' group and when we met last week we talked about both Ayn Rand AND Phillip Pullman, but this similarity between them that you pointed out did not come up.
Also among things that did not come up is how much I hate God.
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