"Democracy of Reading" or a Hidden Agenda? (Phillip Pullman)
Phillip Pullman just wants his readers to enjoy his
books, he says. He's good at that. I'm a couple chapters into the third book in
his controversial trilogy, His Dark
Materials, and I find myself enjoying the read.
Considering that I've more or less assigned myself the books as required reading
(I have to read them if I'm going to discuss them), and that I disagree with his
whole view of God and the good, that's pretty remarkable. Everyone agrees he's a
gifted storyteller, and this may be the best way I have to express my agreement
with that. However...
"I Don't Have An
Agenda"
Pullman gave an interview with Donna Freitas, who has written a book in strong support of Pullman's view of reality, Killing the Imposter God. Freitas said in the first interview on that page that she sees a Christian theme in his books, and that "Dust is the Divine." "Dust" (always capitalized), says Pullman, is a mysterious force of which the powerful people in the book seem to be afraid." But Dust is actually good:
"It's a picture, a visual, physical analogue of everything that is consciousness--human thought, imagination, love, affection, kindness, good things, and curiosity, intellectual curiosity. Our most profound duty is to increase the presence of Dust in the world."
The powerful people are those representing the Church and Authority (also always capitalized; and the Authority is God). They stand aligned against "human thought, imagination, love, affection, kindness, good things, and curiosity, intellectual curiosity."
Is it pushing too far, then, to elide some of these thoughts and say that Pullman considers it at least part of our "most profound duty" to stand against forces that are aligned against Dust? Yet he says he has no agenda (the final interview on that website):
"My agenda is not to convert anyone to any particular point of view. My agenda is to make them feel, see, enjoy, delight in, be beguiled and amused by the story I tell, which is about two ordinary children in extraordinary circumstances. That's my agenda. I'm telling a story, I'm a storyteller. If people go away from the book or put the book down and think about things more deeply than they did before, that's good. I trust the reader, I trust the audience, I trust them to have the sense to see what the qualities are that the book is championing. I don't think anyone can read this book and think that it is intended to rob children of happiness, or rob children of anything to do with wonder and delight and so on. I think that the qualities the book celebrates are those such as kindness, and love, and courage, and courtesy, too, and intellectual curiosity--all these good things. And the qualities the book attacks are cold-heartedness, tyranny, closed-mindedness, cruelty; the things we all agree are bad things.
"Do I have an agenda? I have the agenda of every storyteller, which is to make the reader turn the pages and read on to the end of the book. And I hope that when they have read the book, they will feel a little better for doing so."
No Agenda? Really?
That sounds so innocent. But one of the qualities the first two books celebrate is deceit. Lyra, the protagonist, is honored with the new name "Silvertongue" for successfully deceiving a bear (which is next to impossible in this world). Several of her most significant successes come by lying. She and Will Parry, the other chief character of the second book, contend with each other over who is the better deceiver. There's more than a trace of irony in Pullman's leaving deceit out of his list of qualities the book celebrates, or in failing to acknowledge here what he told the Washington Post: "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief."
Pullman's innocent-sounding protestations here should be evaluated in light of his own view of innocence, which is developed throughout the trilogy. To him, children are innocent; for they have not yet become intellectually ossified like adults have. Never mind that they lie, or kill, or cheat (as they do). That's not what innocence is. Innocence is thinking freely. That, my friends, is a novel interpretation of the concept.
This trilogy has been widely compared to The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. Here's the greatest difference: there is really no vision of the Good in these books. The adult characters all have serious dark sides. The marvelous, powerful, kingly and wonderful bear Iorek Byrneson lauds Lyra for her deceit. Later he finds the body of his dead human friend Lee Scoresby, and in an act of high esteem he (brace yourself) tears him apart with his claws and eats him. The trusted professor Mary Malone becomes the temptress. Lyra lies.
The "Democracy of Reading"--For 8-Year-Olds?
Pullman trusts the reader, he says. He believes in the democracy of reading. How encouraging, how uplifting that sounds. Now, think of the third-grader toward whom these stories are marketed. He trusts her "to see the qualities the book is championing." He trusts her to see kindness, love, courage, courtesy, and intellectual curiosity. Does he trust her also to miss the deceit, the hatred toward authority and disdain toward Church, the need to kill God for his own good, that are also in there? Does he expect her, in her 8-year-old wisdom, to sort out which of these values to accept? For, as Christian radio host Paul Edwards has suggested, there's a very tricky disingenuousness here: he trusts the reader; but the reader also trusts the author. This trust relationship is hardly equal. Children are naturally inclined to trust adults and to trust books. (And if the reader is assigned to study the book, the reader will tend to trust both the author and the teacher.) Pullman has trained himself to discern underlying thoughts, themes, and philosophies. Does he trust a ten-year-old to do that?
Washing His Hands of It
Postmodern literary criticism places the interpretation of texts entirely in the reader's hands, wrenching it away from the author. But Pullman is giving it away; no, he's actually washing his hands of it. Enjoy the book, he says! Make of it what you will! Don't let it ruin your beliefs! And if there's something in there that's utterly hateful toward Church and God, and you take it that way, why blame me? I've trusted you with it!
For all my respect for Pullman's story-telling skills, and my hope that he might someday experience the goodness of God through Jesus Christ, yet there is something very hard to swallow in what he has said here. He wrote three books that are damaging to values and to godly beliefs; but if a child is harmed by his stories, it's not his fault, it's the child's. Is that not callous and cowardly?
I promise you, though, I'm still not losing my joy over this: God is still sovereign, and this book and this movie are in his hands. There is darkness here to be exposed, though; and to me, this strange conceit of innocence Pullman has taken up is the darkest thing of all about this whole business. Yet I encourage fellow Christians to shine a light on it that's attractive and not ugly. I'm hosting book discussions on it at our local libraries in December, and I plan on it being a time of mutual respect and sharing smiles for all there, even if some disagree.
And Back Again to the Film
I'll close by tying this back to the upcoming movie, The Golden Compass. The word on the 'Net is that the anti-God message of the book has been toned down. The enemy establishment is "The Magisterium" and not "the Church." That's fine, but it's hardly enough. Will Lyra still be a deceiver? Will authority in general be treated as dangerous and destructive? It's hard to imagine the story any other way.
Related:
Series Overview
The Golden Compass and "Killing God"--Not An Urban Legend
Coming Soon To Your Child's School: Hostility Toward God and Church, Heavily Promoted
Once Again, How Can This Be Legal?
On Christianity, the Arts, and How To Have a Disagreement
Original Sin Is the Source of Truth? (The Golden Compass)
Death of Divine Authority—Pullman's Agenda
BreakPoint.org on The Golden Compass
"I'm Trying to Undermine the Basis of Christian Belief"
"Democracy of Reading" or a Hidden Agenda? (Phillip Pullman)
Strongly Recommended: Jeffrey Overstreet on the Golden Compass
A New Bearing on The Golden Compass
Rehabilitating The Golden Compass's Religion?
Over-reacting?
Preacher-Man Phillip Pullman
Pullman gave an interview with Donna Freitas, who has written a book in strong support of Pullman's view of reality, Killing the Imposter God. Freitas said in the first interview on that page that she sees a Christian theme in his books, and that "Dust is the Divine." "Dust" (always capitalized), says Pullman, is a mysterious force of which the powerful people in the book seem to be afraid." But Dust is actually good:
"It's a picture, a visual, physical analogue of everything that is consciousness--human thought, imagination, love, affection, kindness, good things, and curiosity, intellectual curiosity. Our most profound duty is to increase the presence of Dust in the world."
The powerful people are those representing the Church and Authority (also always capitalized; and the Authority is God). They stand aligned against "human thought, imagination, love, affection, kindness, good things, and curiosity, intellectual curiosity."
Is it pushing too far, then, to elide some of these thoughts and say that Pullman considers it at least part of our "most profound duty" to stand against forces that are aligned against Dust? Yet he says he has no agenda (the final interview on that website):
"My agenda is not to convert anyone to any particular point of view. My agenda is to make them feel, see, enjoy, delight in, be beguiled and amused by the story I tell, which is about two ordinary children in extraordinary circumstances. That's my agenda. I'm telling a story, I'm a storyteller. If people go away from the book or put the book down and think about things more deeply than they did before, that's good. I trust the reader, I trust the audience, I trust them to have the sense to see what the qualities are that the book is championing. I don't think anyone can read this book and think that it is intended to rob children of happiness, or rob children of anything to do with wonder and delight and so on. I think that the qualities the book celebrates are those such as kindness, and love, and courage, and courtesy, too, and intellectual curiosity--all these good things. And the qualities the book attacks are cold-heartedness, tyranny, closed-mindedness, cruelty; the things we all agree are bad things.
"Do I have an agenda? I have the agenda of every storyteller, which is to make the reader turn the pages and read on to the end of the book. And I hope that when they have read the book, they will feel a little better for doing so."
No Agenda? Really?
That sounds so innocent. But one of the qualities the first two books celebrate is deceit. Lyra, the protagonist, is honored with the new name "Silvertongue" for successfully deceiving a bear (which is next to impossible in this world). Several of her most significant successes come by lying. She and Will Parry, the other chief character of the second book, contend with each other over who is the better deceiver. There's more than a trace of irony in Pullman's leaving deceit out of his list of qualities the book celebrates, or in failing to acknowledge here what he told the Washington Post: "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief."
Pullman's innocent-sounding protestations here should be evaluated in light of his own view of innocence, which is developed throughout the trilogy. To him, children are innocent; for they have not yet become intellectually ossified like adults have. Never mind that they lie, or kill, or cheat (as they do). That's not what innocence is. Innocence is thinking freely. That, my friends, is a novel interpretation of the concept.
This trilogy has been widely compared to The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. Here's the greatest difference: there is really no vision of the Good in these books. The adult characters all have serious dark sides. The marvelous, powerful, kingly and wonderful bear Iorek Byrneson lauds Lyra for her deceit. Later he finds the body of his dead human friend Lee Scoresby, and in an act of high esteem he (brace yourself) tears him apart with his claws and eats him. The trusted professor Mary Malone becomes the temptress. Lyra lies.
The "Democracy of Reading"--For 8-Year-Olds?
Pullman trusts the reader, he says. He believes in the democracy of reading. How encouraging, how uplifting that sounds. Now, think of the third-grader toward whom these stories are marketed. He trusts her "to see the qualities the book is championing." He trusts her to see kindness, love, courage, courtesy, and intellectual curiosity. Does he trust her also to miss the deceit, the hatred toward authority and disdain toward Church, the need to kill God for his own good, that are also in there? Does he expect her, in her 8-year-old wisdom, to sort out which of these values to accept? For, as Christian radio host Paul Edwards has suggested, there's a very tricky disingenuousness here: he trusts the reader; but the reader also trusts the author. This trust relationship is hardly equal. Children are naturally inclined to trust adults and to trust books. (And if the reader is assigned to study the book, the reader will tend to trust both the author and the teacher.) Pullman has trained himself to discern underlying thoughts, themes, and philosophies. Does he trust a ten-year-old to do that?
Washing His Hands of It
Postmodern literary criticism places the interpretation of texts entirely in the reader's hands, wrenching it away from the author. But Pullman is giving it away; no, he's actually washing his hands of it. Enjoy the book, he says! Make of it what you will! Don't let it ruin your beliefs! And if there's something in there that's utterly hateful toward Church and God, and you take it that way, why blame me? I've trusted you with it!
For all my respect for Pullman's story-telling skills, and my hope that he might someday experience the goodness of God through Jesus Christ, yet there is something very hard to swallow in what he has said here. He wrote three books that are damaging to values and to godly beliefs; but if a child is harmed by his stories, it's not his fault, it's the child's. Is that not callous and cowardly?
I promise you, though, I'm still not losing my joy over this: God is still sovereign, and this book and this movie are in his hands. There is darkness here to be exposed, though; and to me, this strange conceit of innocence Pullman has taken up is the darkest thing of all about this whole business. Yet I encourage fellow Christians to shine a light on it that's attractive and not ugly. I'm hosting book discussions on it at our local libraries in December, and I plan on it being a time of mutual respect and sharing smiles for all there, even if some disagree.
And Back Again to the Film
I'll close by tying this back to the upcoming movie, The Golden Compass. The word on the 'Net is that the anti-God message of the book has been toned down. The enemy establishment is "The Magisterium" and not "the Church." That's fine, but it's hardly enough. Will Lyra still be a deceiver? Will authority in general be treated as dangerous and destructive? It's hard to imagine the story any other way.
Related:
Series Overview
The Golden Compass and "Killing God"--Not An Urban Legend
Coming Soon To Your Child's School: Hostility Toward God and Church, Heavily Promoted
Once Again, How Can This Be Legal?
On Christianity, the Arts, and How To Have a Disagreement
Original Sin Is the Source of Truth? (The Golden Compass)
Death of Divine Authority—Pullman's Agenda
BreakPoint.org on The Golden Compass
"I'm Trying to Undermine the Basis of Christian Belief"
"Democracy of Reading" or a Hidden Agenda? (Phillip Pullman)
Strongly Recommended: Jeffrey Overstreet on the Golden Compass
A New Bearing on The Golden Compass
Rehabilitating The Golden Compass's Religion?
Over-reacting?
Preacher-Man Phillip Pullman
Posted: Tue - November 20, 2007 at 09:17 AM |
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Published On: Dec 06, 2007 01:03 PM
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Published On: Dec 06, 2007 01:03 PM
