Re: His Dark Materials (was Re: "Da Vinci" Debunking

David Rivers wrote:

> I read the books a couple of years ago and I wasn't impressed. The first
> volume
> seemed promising. The quality of the second started declining about half-way
> through. And I wasn't able to finish reading the third.
>
> It's something like 'the atheist's answer to Narnia'.

While you could, I suppose, maintain your other criticisms, I can't see how
you could maintain charges that the books are "unspiritual" if you had
finished them.  The ending of the third book is very spiritual.

I would agree that the books could be called atheist in that they do not
posit a specific creator, or at least not one that stuck around.  The
underlying spiritual basis in Pullman's universe is consciousness itself
rather than a deity.

I also don't see how the books are in any way a response to Lewis' Narnia
books, unless you pulled that name out for rhetorical effect.  The tropes in
Pullman's books do not related to those of Narnia.  Other than the fact that
the two books are popular children's fantasies, I see no connection.

-Yvonne Rathbone