As Jimmy Akin makes manifestly apparent.Naturally, the Catholic League and its head Bill Donohue are warning parents against The Golden Compass, and Pullman is quoted as saying the following:
How "the hell" does Bill Donohue know that Pullman is a militant atheist out to convert people?"To regard it as this Donohue man has said - that I'm a militant atheist, and my intention is to convert people - how the hell does he know that?" he said, in an interview with Newsweek magazine.
Because Pullman himself has said so!
In an interview published in the Washington Post (Feb. 19, 2001), he stated:
Enough said.“’I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief,’ says Pullman. ‘Mr. Lewis [C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia] would think I was doing the Devil's work.’”
2 comments:
What is interesting is that this tells the big difference between Lewis and Pullman: Lewis wrote to entertain first, and slowly found himself pulled to adding the Christian message to his work. As he told people, when he first began to write Narnia, he had images in his head of scenes which he had to write up on -- and slowly it moved into a story where he saw it was a reflection of the Great Story, and he let it continue to be that after it took on this aspect.
Pullman wrote with propaganda first, and, while that doesn't always mean bad literature, it makes it much more difficult to build upon. I've not read his works, but from what I understand, the further Pullman wrote, the worse his books became because of this.
Good point, Henry. I read GC long ago - in my New Age Zen United Methodist days - and I liked Pullman's imagery. It was far better than most the post-Tolkien, post-Lewis fantasy market. I looked forward to the second, Amber Spyglass. When I read that I began to notice the ax he was grinding and I didn't like it, but, as with Rowling's series, I had a kind of loyalty to the characters. I started the third where he truly showed his hand, and I threw the book away.
prayer is that the film is as bad as some have said and it will fade quickly after the first big weekend.
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