YA: How much sexual content?

[HareBrain]

I think Pullman is (or wrote his book as though he were) a Romantic.

(Weirdly, although I've been looking for modern Romantic writers for a while, I never thought of him.)

 

[Hex]

Okay, clever one. Now you'll need to explain again what Romantic means. Please.

 

[HareBrain]

Er ... OK, the definition I'd use is someone who looks on Nature as though it contains a spiritual element (but perhaps without necessarily believing that it actually does so) and without binding it into religion. But it's a pretty vague term.

At any rate, the dust and the daemons mean HDM is not a materialist book -- it seems to me that Pullman's beef is with those who have co-opted and chained the idea of God, not with the idea itself (whatever it means). I think he's said he was influenced by Blake, who was very much a Romantic.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Pullman has clearly stated (more recently, that interview is 2002, 12 years ago) he's an Atheist (Certainly a Richard Dawkins supporter) and that he hates Lewis, Narnia, Religion and specifically Christianity. He makes it clear frequently on BBC R4, now, what his aim is. The series was dishonest.
After he was established as a Fantasy Author.


Lewis on the other hand was a well established, famous Christian Apologist long before Narnia was published. There was no false pretences.

I enjoyed "His Dark Materials" Northern Lights at the start, I thought it was clever, then I thought it was dishonestly clever. I felt dirtied, manipulated and cheated.

I'm fine with people being anti-Christian and writing Fantasy. I'm not so happy when they hypocritically attack dead people claim they have done something that they themselves are more guilty of.

 

[Brian G Turner]

If we want to continue discussions on Pullman, let's raise one of his threads and take the discussion there.