The Golden Compass

At our focus group dinner this afternoon, someone asked me about The Golden Compass. And while I have been following commentaries on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy at least since Alan Jacobs and Ken Myers discussed their misgivings about it on Mars Hill Audio Journal after the first volume came out, I haven't read it. So I'll limit my comments to noting that his fantasy world is an anti-Narnia. In Alan Jacobs biography of C. S. Lewis, The Narnian, Jacobs quotes this summary of Lewis's message in Narnia as Pullman sees it:

Death is better than life; boys are better than girls; light-coloured people are better than dark-coloured people; and so on. There is no shortage of such nauseating drivel in Narnia, if you can face it. . . . those of us who detest the supernaturalism, the reactionary sneering, the misogyny, the racism, and the sheer dishonesty of his narrative method will still be arguing against him [even after Lewis's imagined canonization] (p 307).

For detailed comments from someone who has read the book, check out Tom Gilson's blog at http://www.thinkingchristian.net/?p=1111. This page will lead you to recent blog entries on The Golden Compass.