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

I have not read these books, but I heard an interview with Pullman on NPR a few months ago. He siad that he was writing specifically in resposne to Narnia, whose dismissal of the world in favor of the spiritual he found appaling.

 

Bradley A. Skene

David Rivers <flumina1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > 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.
>
> Something about the Democracy of Heaven or something, wasn't it?
>
> > 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.
>
> The connection is that children travel into other worlds and deal with explicitly
> religious figures. I think you are probably correct that Pullman wasn'tdeliberately writing in response to C.S. Lewis... although Lewis also wrote an
> uncompleted
>  story about an 'alternate reality' Oxford (The Dark Tower).
>
> David
>
>
>
>
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