[CALIBK12] Golden Compass controversy

Mon Dec 3 12:36:09 PST 2007

Here is an article from the NY Times about the series of books. I think the
movie coming out now is renewing the controversy as well.

The Man Who Dared Make Religion the Villain; In British Author's Trilogy,
Great Adventures Aren't Pegged to the Great Beyond 

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By SARAH LYALL 

Published: November 7, 2000

Nytimes.com

Six months ago, the British author Philip Pullman got a letter from a
reader, along with a picture of a winsome little squirrel. ''I want you to
admire this squirrel,'' the letter said. ''Now that you've admired the
squirrel, please think about your book which the world has spent so long
waiting for. Now, put those two things together. Finish your book, or the
squirrel will die.'' 

Perhaps Mr. Pullman's reputation has not yet swelled to J. K. Rowling-esque
proportions, but there is no question that he has a growing following of
impassioned admirers who take a personal interest in his publishing
schedule. And with the long-awaited publication of ''The Amber Spyglass''
(Knopf), the last book of a trilogy that began with ''The Golden Compass''
in 1995, Mr. Pullman has done more than appease his eager readers (and spare
the squirrel, presumably). He has produced a thrillingly ambitious tale
inspired by Milton's ''Paradise Lost'' with a radical view of religion that
may well hold the most subversive message in children's literature in years.

Interviewed recently in London, Mr. Pullman said that his story, which tells
of a boy and a girl from different worlds who grapple with profound
philosophical questions of existence while having amazing adventures, was
the most important thing to him, even more important than the books'
underlying meaning. 

''The story has been coming to me for a long time, the idea of a very big
story that would be free from the constraints of superficial realism,'' he
said. ''But when you tell a story, there's got to be a worldview that's
consistent throughout, and this is mine. I dare say there might be a certain
amount of controversy, which places me in a slightly difficult position
because I have not written a sermon or a treatise or a book of philosophy --
I have written a novel.'' 

The trilogy contains many of the familiar elements of fantasy and adventure
novels aimed at the class of readers loosely classified as young adults:
child heroes who undergo life-threatening and character-building trials; an
epic struggle between good and evil, between love and hatred, between free
will and submission; a cliffhanging, imaginative narrative that in this case
glides among various worlds, from a strange city populated by adult-eating
specters to a world of the dead full of pitiful souls who long more than
anything to taste the air again and then escape into nothingness. 

It is full of singular characters, too. There are huge polar bears, proud,
fierce and fair, who wear expertly hewn armor that they happen to have made
themselves. There are angels of immense spiritual purity whose fatal flaw --
and most aching regret -- is their lack of corporeal existence. There are
tiny creatures called Gallivespians, who are very easy to offend, make
excellent spies and carry lethal poison in their spurs. There are good
witches, forlorn ghosts and terrifying harpies whose fate brings an element
of unexpected joy. And there are humans from a world very much like -- but
not quite the same as -- our own, whose souls manifest themselves as animal
daemons who stay with them always. 

But the books, which have been read by adults as avidly as by teenagers and
younger readers, defiantly confound the expectations of their genre. For one
thing, the lines between good and evil are muddy and shifting, so that the
most wicked characters are capable of startling acts of heroism and
sacrifice. More important, and shockingly, Mr. Pullman, a 53-year-old former
schoolteacher, has created a world in which organized religion -- or, at
least, what organized religion has become -- is the enemy and its agents are
the misguided villains. 

In this way, Mr. Pullman's book offers an explicit alternative to C. S.
Lewis's ''Chronicles of Narnia,'' with their pervasive Christian message. In
the Narnia books, nestled inside the delightful stories of talking animals,
heroic challenges and whimsical scenes, the meaning is clear: the heroes
find true happiness only after death, when their spiritual superiority buys
them passage to heaven. 

It is a conclusion with which Mr. Pullman thoroughly disagrees. ''When you
look at what C. S. Lewis is saying, his message is so anti-life, so cruel,
so unjust,'' he said. ''The view that the Narnia books have for the material
world is one of almost undisguised contempt. At one point, the old professor
says, 'It's all in Plato' -- meaning that the physical world we see around
us is the crude, shabby, imperfect, second-rate copy of something much
better.'' 

Instead, Mr. Pullman argues for a ''republic of heaven'' where people live
as fully and richly as they can because there is no life beyond. ''I wanted
to emphasize the simple physical truth of things, the absolute primacy of
the material life, rather than the spiritual or the afterlife,'' he said.
''That's why the angels envy our bodies -- because our senses are keener,
our muscles are stronger. If the angels had our bodies and our nerves,
they'd be in a perpetual state of ecstasy.'' 

At a time when even the Harry Potter books have been accused of promoting
black magic and Satanism, it seems unlikely that Mr. Pullman's theology
could fail to provoke. Already, The Catholic Herald in Britain has condemned
the trilogy as ''truly the stuff of nightmares.'' 

But many critics have reveled in it. Writing in The Times of London, Erica
Wagner said she hoped that younger readers would understand the philosophy
underpinning the story, whose text is peppered with allusions to Milton,
Blake, Coleridge, Ruskin and the Bible, among others. ''One can only hope
that where Pullman leads they will follow, and discover the dissenting
tradition from which these books spring,'' she said. ''This is remarkable
writing: courageous and dangerous, as the best art should be. Pullman
envisions a world without God, but not without hope.'' 

Mr. Pullman's trilogy has been compared by some to Tolkien's ''Lord of the
Rings'' and by others to the best writing of Ursula K. Le Guin. And, in a
review of ''The Subtle Knife,'' the second volume, Michael Dirda argued in
The Washington Post that the books deserved a place alongside such
children's classics as Madeleine L'Engle's ''Wrinkle in Time'' and Philippa
Pearce's ''Tom's Midnight Garden.'' 

''Actually,'' Mr. Dirda wrote, ''Pullman's book is more sheerly,
breathtakingly all-stops-out thrilling than any of them.'' 

The author grew up in Wales listening to the fantastical stories of his
maternal grandfather, an Anglican priest bursting with imaginative energy.
''I think he would be shocked by some of the things in the story,'' said Mr.
Pullman, who was raised a Protestant but became an atheist as a teenager.
''But given his broad humanity and his ability to find human and moral
truths, he would understand the feelings that the book celebrates.'' 

Mr. Pullman studied English at Oxford and taught secondary school for years.
He has been publishing books since 1972 (''The first one was so bad, I'm not
even going to tell you the title,'' he said) and has written a number of
acclaimed novels for older children, including a quartet of adventure
stories set in Victorian London. The idea for the trilogy that he has called
''His Dark Materials'' -- the name is from Milton -- came some time ago when
he and his literary agent found themselves discussing their shared passion
for ''Paradise Lost'' over a lunch of sausages and mashed potatoes. 

''It occurred to me that Milton was using the apparatus of fantasy -- the
cosmology, the people with wings, and so on -- at a time when he knew full
well that the universe wasn't constructed like that,'' Mr. Pullman said.
''He was aware that the geography of paradise didn't actually correspond to
the real world. But it was a space inside of which he could say certain
important things about states of mind, about psychological truth. 

''And I thought maybe I could take it as an inspiration, a starting point,
to use the apparatus of fantasy to say something psychologically true. Or at
least as true as I could see it.'' 

He hopes the trilogy will be read for its gripping plot, first and foremost.
That's certainly how Kirkus Reviews read the latest volume, as indicated by
its glowing advance review. ''What matters at the last are the stories, and
the truth of their telling,'' the review said. ''Readers will be chastened
-- and warmed -- and sorry to see the last page.'' 

Mr. Pullman hopes that children will draw their own conclusions. 

''We all negotiate the meanings of things as we read them,'' he said. ''My
reading of the book, while no less valid than anybody else's, is no more
valid. If I were to say, this means that, or you must read it in that way,
this would seem to have a particular authority that I don't want.'' Coming
back to the republic of heaven, he said, ''the republican thing to do would
be to stand back and not take a position.'' 

  _____  

From: calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu
[mailto:calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu] On Behalf Of Passonneau, Sarah
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 11:59 AM
To: CWeberjohn at djusd.k12.ca.us; calibk12 at listproc.sjsu.edu
Subject: Re: [CALIBK12] Golden Compass controversy

Hi Chris,

This book has a long and storied controversy around it.  I love the book and
it has won numerous awards attesting to its quality and made many lists for
top literature (that is for all literature not just children's lit.) award
in the last part of the 20th century.  Phillip Pullman states, "my most
well-known work is the trilogy His Dark Materials, beginning with Northern
Lights (The Golden Compass in the USA) in 1995, continuing with The Subtle
Knife in 1997, and concluding with The Amber Spyglass in 2000. These books
have been honored by several prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, the
Guardian Children's Book Award, and (for The Amber Spyglass) the Whitbread
Book of the Year Award - the first time in the history of that prize that it
was given to a children's book."  

This book was challenged as a lit. circle reading in my district.  I
investigated it even more than I had before.  It was for a 5th grade group.
I am not sure if that is the best age for it but I argued to muzzle the book
after it had already been started would teach students something very bad
about freedom of speech, autonomy of schools, and of confronting debate.  

That said many of my friends think it anti-religion or established religion.
Many of my friends also think that it supports healthy questioning of all
institutions.  It does have "anti-establishment" view of organized religions
and all institutions.   Frankly for 6th grade if the students love to read I
think it is a prefect book to bring children's power to judge and question
to piece of literature.  It will bring the teacher's and student's ability
to use their critical thinking to the forefront.    It would also be wise to
supplement it with excerpts of other books like the
<http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/> The Chronicles of Narnia,
Wrinkle in Time.

Like those books The Golden Compass is courted by controversy and like those
books this book will make students think.  I advise you and the teacher to
read up on the book, argue for its use (even if you don't agree with it) and
know that someone will probably challenge it.

Sarah Passonneau

Library Services Supervisor

TUSD

13601 Browning Ave. 

Tustin, CA 92780

(714)730-7398

-----Original Message-----
From: calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu
[mailto:calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu] On Behalf Of
CWeberjohn at djusd.k12.ca.us
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 10:37 AM
To: calibk12 at listproc.sjsu.edu
Subject: [CALIBK12] Golden Compass controversy

Hi,

A sixth grade teacher would like to use The Golden Compass as a lit circle
book.  She was told that there is a controversy about it.    It seems to
involve the Catholic Church suggesting that people not go see the movie.
Does anyone know more about this and what the church's objection is (if it
is objecting)?

Thanks,

Chris Weber-Johnson

Library Media Teacher

Robert E. Willett Elementary School

Davis Joint Unified School District

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