Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman is like me, someone who was raised as a Christian, but who no longer considers himself so, though he values its mythology, its language as expressed in the Authorised Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.

It's only in his afterword that Pullman explains the premise for his retelling of the Christian story: that if Christ hadn't 'died for us', there would be nothing to differentiate Jesus from the many and varied prophets doing the rounds at the time, and Christianity wouldn't have 'taken off'.

According to this re-telling, Jesus and Christ were the twin sons of Mary. Jesus becomes the prophet, Christ the thinker, the recorder of his brother's story. When Jesus dies, it is Christ who re-appears after three days. There was no Immaculate Conception, no real miracles, no Resurrection.

The story is told in plain unvarnished prose with none of the poetry we associate with the bible, which I found disappointing, though Pullman sticks closely to the gospel stories.

His argument is an interesting one, though it's something which his afterword explains fully, and would have been sufficient to make his point. Perhaps though, he needed to tell his tale in the way that he did, for the afterword to have the impact he required. An interesting read, but not up to the usual Pullman standard I thought.… (més)

I’m on the fence between 3 and 4 stars for Golden Compass. My best friend recommended it, so I guess my expectations were very high. The first half or more was SO SLOW I considered DNFing. It got better, and my hope is that perhaps the subsequent two books will move more quickly since the premise has already been fully set.

When this series began, I attended Christian school, so I would have been strongly discouraged from reading it even if it had held any intrigue for me. I understand why the Church would ban this series, because of how organized religion is portrayed. The metaphors are thinly veiled (when veiled at all), and the incorporation of existing entities is blurred with the fiction of the alternate universe in which the story takes place.

Ignoring that, though, the story itself (once it gets moving, finally) is solid and full of action and intrigue. Pullman is creative. I want to live in a world in which everyone has an animal sidekick with her at all times, please. Judged on its own as a fantasy story without any other implications, it’s quite good.

I found it far too dark to consider reading with my kids. (I did try initially, but they fell asleep before I finished a chapter… a few nights in a row.) That was a bit disappointing, since I really thought this series was made for kids/YA. Definitely more YA and not at all kids, IMO.… (més)