The Golden Compass article

[syme]

There was an excellent article on Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy on the First Things blog today. It really does a good job uncovering the insidiousness (beautifully written insidiousness, that is) of Pullman's work. The more I read about this trilogy, the more poisonous it subtle poison seems. It saddens me so much to see God, the Church, and Christians in general villified in this way. Why do they always have to make us the bad guys? Really! I mean, I know Our Lord said that blessed are we when they utter all kinds of evils against us for His sake, and I don't doubt that we are, but it still saddens me that others can't see the love and beauty of Our Lord and His Church, and that they insist on painting us all either as decievers or dupes. How sad.

In anycase, to read the article go here: www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=913. I especially like the author's explanation of what Pullman does with Paradise Lost, as well as the way he points out the rampant dishonesty that exists in some important parts of the narrative.

[pierregambotsky]

By the way, I have some good news. I just saw on Rotten Tomatoes that the movie apparently SUCKS! So far it's got a 36% rating. Now, that's pretty darn rotten! Now let's hope it's a dud at the box office. Then we might be spared two more of these.

[katycarl]

36% you say? And I hear it is already tanking with moviegoers. Sic semper Phillip Pullman.

True: Pullman's got a nasty agenda. But two things can be said: (1) he doesn't try to hide it, which does make it easier to confront, and (2) his discourse, insofar as it's philosophical, is fundamentally flawed. Instead of attacking the real God and the real Church, he's set up a straw God and a straw Church and is attacking those. The trick is to get people to see that, since there is a strong tendency to draw toward the sort of ahistorical, unsound, highly emotional and completely invented portraits he paints. The more I think about it, the more I'm uncertain whether this is something we're ever going to do with plain old rhetorical discourse. It's going to have to be more an affair of the heart, conducted with our lives and with what we create, ourselves. ....

[cristina]

Remember our discussions on our need, as Catholic artists, to beware of the tendency to sacrifice art for the sake of the message? Apparently atheists artists have that tendency too:

johncwright.livejournal.com/134046.html#cutid1