It’s significant that a journalist noticed this notation on Philip Pullman's writing desk because it’s the thrust of his three-volume work, His Dark Materials (HDM). New Line Cinema has spent $180 million to bring the first book of Pullman’s trilogy to screen. The Golden Compass opens December 7.
New Line is the studio that brought us The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and clearly New Line is hoping it has another Rings-style hit on its hands. They might, what with the big stars, the astonishing special effects, and the fact that the film is based on award-winning children’s books that have served as Scholastic study material in some middle schools.
But here’s the thing: while the Christian worldview infuses the Rings trilogy, it is opposition to the Christian worldview that you find in Pullman’s trilogy.
So, what should parents do? And what should culturally-savvy Christians do about this much-discussed project? That’s the subject of this post.
What Should Parents Do
The books portray such an avid and astonishing hostility to Christianity that I’m baffled anyone would recommend the material for kids.
I’ve read the trilogy, and its popularity is no surprise. Despite my contention that the quality of the story-telling meanders away in the closing chapters of the third book, it’s an intriguing work. Pullman employs interesting literary devices, not the least of which is the characters’ “daemons”— no, not “demons” but the characters’ souls, external to the body and in animal form. Warrior polar bears, flying zeppelins, a precocious 12-year-old protagonist with a destiny to fulfill, special tools like a knife that cuts openings into other worlds, the kindness of common people contrasted with the driven selfishness of the powerful, spectres that suck life from their victims, and a complicated mystery to unravel--it all makes for an engaging read.
But, as Pullman has accurately said, his books are about “killing God” (sample) and marginalizing "organised religion of whatever sort" (sample).
Of course, with 180 million of New Line’s dollars at stake, the closer we get to the opening weekend of The Golden Compass the more “toned down” Pullman has become from previous interviews. And I doubt the first film in the series will delve too deeply into these subjects.
But that’s just for now. Director Chris Weitz says he plans to stay true to the books’ anti-religious elements should New Line let him put the other books to film. Astonishingly, he said that he’s had to be “clever about it” until he builds an audience for “the overt stating of some of the themes in The Golden Compass.” But he assures Pullman fans:
Whereas The Golden Compass had to be introduced to the public carefully, the religious themes in the second and third books can't be minimized without destroying the spirit of these books. . . . I will not be involved with any ‘watering down’ of books two and three, since what I have been working towards the whole time in the first film is to be able to deliver on the second and third films. (Link.)I don’t know whether New Line will let Weitz deliver on his promises. (This entertaining commentary says they won’t.) But if his subsequent films are able to stay true to the books, this won’t be a movie series for the kids.
What Culturally-Savvy Christians Should Do
The New Yorker is probably right, though, that more adults have read Pullman’s trilogy than kids. And I’m ready to have a conversation with grown-ups about the Oxford author’s rich story-telling and complex themes.
Let’s talk about Pullman’s “daemons”: What is he saying by portraying souls as animal characters that are the opposite sex of the person (except in the case of homosexuals), daemons that become fixed into one unchangeable form once a person becomes an adult? Let’s talk about Dust. Let’s talk about Pullman’s “god”: Does Pullman actually conceive of angels and “god” as highly-developed creatures in the continuing evolution from unconsciousness to higher consciousness? Or is “god’s” death a metaphor for Pullman’s wish to see the Christian conception of God go away? What led to Pullman’s pull-no-punches hostility to organized religion? I mean, I'll sadly grant that church history has had shameful moments where leaders have been as sinister as every single churchman in HDM, but there’s not a single counterbalancing religiously-admirable character in the trilogy’s vast cast. So, what led to Pullman’s hostility, and why has he found an audience? Is his view of death as mere annihilation of consciousness as satisfying as he puts it in the mouth of one of his characters freed from “hell”? Is his understanding of the biblical Fall accurate, and is his alternate “Fall” at the end of the series as good for the world as he envisions? As the films come out, what do Pullman fans like and dislike about the translation from books to film?
Fodder for a lot of late-night conversations.
Among grown-ups.
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