Philip Pullman Series

[gluadys]

With the release of The Golden Compass this weekend, a lot of attention is being drawn to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

Although published as children's literature (a la Narnia tales and Harry Potter) the story has much more complex and darker themes.

I have read the whole series and enjoyed it immensely.

Anyone else familiar with it?  Comments?

[Acumen]

I'm not familiar with the series.  Due to the newness of the forum, you might hear crickets chirping on this one -- but who knows?  I'm glad you were the first to start a topic here, I'm sort of interested to see how this board progresses.

[agricola]

I read the first two books. The first book really got me interested - a fresh voice, a really imaginative 'other world' - I read a lot - voraciously - and I read a lot of SF/F (among other genres) and this story was very new and very good.

Then I read book two.

By the end of it, I was tired and bored. Pullman was telegraphing his opinions about religion, God and politics so incessantly it overcame the imagination of the story and just about killed it. It was far FAR too easy to see exactly where he was going with it, and I was no longer interested in following it. No more story, no more adventure, no more 'what happens next' excitement.

I haven't read book 3. I did look at it and thumb through a few pages and read a few scenes, in case he pulled out and did a 180 and DIDN'T go where he was headed in book two, but (sigh) no luck.

I can't say that failing to finish a trilogy is unique in my experience, but it IS pretty rare for me to put down something of that kind that I've started. I put Pullman down two-thirds through and left it hanging with no regrets.

I hear the movie dumbed down the 'religion' part, which couldnt' possibly have helped. I didn't see it.

[gluadys]

I hear the movie dumbed down the 'religion' part, which couldnt' possibly have helped. I didn't see it.

They also left out the last 1/3 of the book.  Wanted a happy ending for the under-12 crowd I guess. 

[Acumen]

Holy Cow!  Welcome back, Gluadys!!!   

[gluadys]

Holy Cow!  Welcome back, Gluadys!!!   

I don't know that I'll stay.  Got an e-mail that there was more traffic here, but I'm not seeing that yet.  OTOH, the boards I usually frequent are rather slow these days too, so I might pop in here from time to time.

[Acumen]

gluadys,

The sabbath coupled with the holiday weekend, it is understandably slower right now.  Yesterday, we broke a new record for visitors on the site at a single time, however our regulars appear to be taking the weekend off.

Trust me, during the week it gets pretty busy in here.  However, if you're talking about the science board, yep -- that board runs on the slow side.

[sferrari17]

Yeah, I read His Dark Materials when I was about 10, and I really liked them.  However, when I re-read them at 16 to refresh my memory before the movie came out, I just couldn't get through them.  The religious overtones are really in your face; Pullman doesn't use the subtlety that Lewis did.