No one told me...
On Saturday I bought Northern Lights, the first volume in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pulman. Although I'm only a quarter of the way through it, I'm already loving it. What I find I'm now asking myself, is how this has kept below my radar for so long when it's such a beautiful piece of work? It then makes me wonder how many other wondrous novels I'm missing out on. I discovered China Mieville by chance, too, and mentally kicked myself at the time for having missed that.
How do other people keep abreast of all that's going on in the world of quality fiction? Are there mailing lists or websites that are dedicated to exactly this kind of thing that I should be visiting regularly or subscribing to? At the risk of loading myself down with vast numbers of magazine subscriptions, which are the best ones to take up?
Answers on a postcard, please...
How do other people keep abreast of all that's going on in the world of quality fiction? Are there mailing lists or websites that are dedicated to exactly this kind of thing that I should be visiting regularly or subscribing to? At the risk of loading myself down with vast numbers of magazine subscriptions, which are the best ones to take up?
Answers on a postcard, please...
posted by Steve | 8:23 AM
6 Comments:
Hi Steve Ince,
You should not be so sorry, that Philip Pullman's trilogy has stayed out of your radar for so long as it has. It was all for the best. It is really a waste of your time to read it through. The further you get into the story the worse it will get. The plot-holes will just grow and grow all the while Pullman's incoherent hate-mongering directed against Christians and Jews just keeps growing more and more shrill. In vol 3 it simply gets out of hand, but I suspect, that you will see that for yourself, if you keep going. Yet, I really think you should go read something more worthwhile.
The fundamental problems with Philip Pullman are:
1. That he first creates a concept and then he needs something to happen in his story, which earlier passages in his book would prevent. So what does he do? He simply comes up with a really poor explanation as to why things happen.
As an example keep an eye on when he tries to explain why Mrs Coulter in a certain area is not attacked like all adults are. He has created an area where adults cannot go unattacked, but he needs Mrs Coulter there unattacked, so what does he do? He simply comes up with a really poor reason as to why she goes unattacked: By not attacking her the attackers knew that she would lead them to more victims, than she represented on her own. Really? His story does not justify that claim AND furthermore the attackers had at no point before this been portraited as intelligent in any way. They were simply drawn to "dust" as iron to a magnet. Now all of a sudden they are cunning creatures. Pullman simply changes the rules of his own world as it suits his immediate need even though it turns all he has previously said about something into rubbish.
2. The second problem with Pullman is that he for some reason hates Christians (You will see that he in the end of vol 3 around page 438 goes as far as to call Christianity a longlived and convincing mistake and the list goes on), but perhaps due to his ignorance or to a backwards plan, his attack on Christians ends up as an attack on the Jews.
Pullman never speaks a single word concerned with Jesus Christ (which after all is the root of Christianity). Instead he goes on and on in his homemade picture of Jahve as an evil god, who does all he can to deny humans any knowledge. Every time he wants to justify his homemade picture of Jahve he either quotes from the Bible in his alternate world where he can rewrite it as he likes (like when he claims, that the daimons were part of the book of genesis, see vol 1) or he outright corrupts biblical passages (like when he claims, that the animals were first named in the bible after Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, see vol 3 around page 224).
Yet, here we see Pullman's shortcomings again when it comes to handling plot. He wants to make a point about how eating from the forbidden tree was really a good thing, since it lead to knowledge. Jahve is evil because he does not want humans to gain knowledge. So when the bible says, that Adam named the animals before he ate from the forbidden tree, the bible goes against Pullman's point. How does he react? Pullman simply re-writes that part of the bible and volia now Jahve is evil and against all knowledge, even the bible says so... according to Pullman.
Now I do not think it is wrong to make use of artistic freedom in reinterpreting things like the bible or whatever. Yet, when you begin to make hateful attacks on real existing religious denominations like Judaism or Christianity, then I think, that the least you can do, is to actually have an argument. An argument, which does not rely on corrupting and re-writing the actual facts, which you want to base your point on. His accusations even turns upon himself, displaying him as a hippocrite, when he accuses Christianity or rather Judaism for denying humans all true knowledge, while Pullman himself bases his argument on corrupted facts.
To top it all Pullman delivers in the end of vol 3 his reason why there is supposed to be no God. The way Pullman builds up that argument and the conclusion he finds, that it is fair to draw from it, in may ways expose the inner workings of Pullman's logics.
Pullman lets a woman tell her story. This woman joined a very strict order of nuns of her own free will . Now later on she fell in love with a man, so therefore there is no God (see vol 3 near the end)
Pullman presents the above story as a very reasonable tale and at no point begins to discredit the reasoning behind it.
Summary:
To sum up Pullman seems unable to stay true to the rules he himself invents for his own universe. It really feels like he wrote the trilogy on the fly and simply tossed over his own inventions, ideas and rules every time he got a new idea.
The only thing consistent through all the trilogy is Pullman's hatred for Christianity (read: Judaism). Pullman never argues his case against Christianity nor Judaism except through homemade or re-written bible quotations and syllogisms alike this one: Woman becomes nun. Woman falls in love with man. Therefore there is no God.
Pullman should only have written first part of volume one. It has some good ideas and the plot works somewhat well. Also it remains within what one could call "artistic freedom" in re-interpreting the bible in a fantasy universe and remains generally free from unqualified hate-mongering.
Thanks for posting such an interesting piece. Without the benefit of reading the trilogy, I don't think I can comment on your interpretation of his writings. And in all fairness, the work is regarded by many as pretty important.
I shall return once I'm in a position to respond.
Yes you are right Steve. Many seem to value Pullman's trilogy highly, which is why I read it myself in the first place. And do not get me wrong, I felt like you describe in your blog while reading first part of volume one. Yet, that feeling changed as I read on.
I look forward to hear your opinion. I sincerely hope, that you arrive at another conclusion than I did and that you will be able to explain to me how wrong I was especially about Pullman's hate-mongering towards Christians and Jews. For, as you so correctly point out, Pullman's trilogy seems to be regarded highly by many and that is truly quite a disturbing fact if my analysis of his hate-mongering is just somewhat correct.
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