Night Watch - gave what help he could
Holger Linge
I've just finished Night Watch. And while i had no problems
with the most parts of the books there are few words that
make me upset.
It's when the watch investigates the Unmentionable HQ. They
find all these tortured and broken souls and then:
"Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes
removed his knife, and...gave what help he could".
Boy, that's hard stuff. Does Vimes actually kill (better:
murder) them? A few sentences later DEATH has his appearance
- with a funny one very contrary to the scene before.
Have i got here something _very_ wrong, or did Vimes really
do it?
--
cu
Holger
.de
Vincent Oberheim
"Holger Linge" <spam5478345...@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:tfot0050r1qdfb3b6...@4ax.com...
I think it's a bit harsh to say that Vimes *murders* them. These poor souls
were so far beyond the help of a doctor that leaving them to die a slow
painful death (in the company of others who have already died that way)
would have far more cruel. And I don't think Vimes' concience would have
allowed him just to leave them.
This of course raises that tricky question of euthanasia, which I personally
haven't made my mind up about. It's one of those situations where you don't
really know how you would act unless you were in that position.
Vincent
Cath Unsworth
>
> I've just finished Night Watch. And while i had no problems
> with the most parts of the books there are few words that
> make me upset.
>
Spoilers inserted...
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
> It's when the watch investigates the Unmentionable HQ. They
> find all these tortured and broken souls and then:
>
> "Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes
> removed his knife, and...gave what help he could".
>
> Boy, that's hard stuff. Does Vimes actually kill (better:
> murder) them? A few sentences later DEATH has his appearance
> - with a funny one very contrary to the scene before.
>
> Have i got here something _very_ wrong, or did Vimes really
> do it?
> --
> cu
> Holger
> .de
Yes, it is hard stuff. As it happens, I was rereading that passage last
night, and drew immense comfort from the preceding three sentences:
"And some were dead. Others were ... well, if they weren't dead, if they'd
just gone somewhere in their heads, it was as sure as hell that there was
nothing for them to come back to. The chair had broken them again and
again. They were beyond the help of any man."
Now perhaps I'm skewed by my own moral sense that it is possible to "put
someone out of their misery"; that there are worse things than dying. But -
even if I didn't believe that - the inference of "beyond the help/gave what
help he could" is that Vimes believes his act is merciful. He believes that
either his act has no effect on their awareness, or it ends their private
hell (unless you believe in an afterlife and also believe these victims
deserve to be in hell). It may condemn Vimes, but I for one hope I would be
able to do the same thing.
Alternatively, you can view this episode as a skilfull way of describing
just how awful the torture must have been, without having to think of
gut-turning episodes to describe. These people have been so badly treated,
there is no way back for them. What awful scenes would Pterry have had to
describe to give us the same understanding?
As an afterthought, the line I admire in this scene is young Sam saying he'd
found a woman in the last room and being unable to describe her state,
followed by (a page or so on):
"Vimes glanced at the door of the last room. No, he wasn't going in there
again."
Maybe it's just me, but this is the only time in the book that I can
actually feel Vimes's sense of dislocation at having some memories twice,
from different persepectives. Older Vimes hasn't been in the room, but
young Sam's memory of what was in there is still with him, decades later.
Masterful writing.
Just my view.
Cath
Alec Cawley
Oberheim <norman....@ntlworld.com> writes
Feeling in a foolhardy mood, I'll take this up. I think there definitely
exist cases in which euthanasia is justified. And this, as the tale is
told us, is definitely one of them. Vimes has done the morally right
thing.
But the morally right thing is not necessarily the legally right thing.
The existence of laws which would allow the morally permissible forms of
euthanasia might have unpleasant side effects. One is the possibility of
the elderly and infirm being pressured into asking for a euthanasia they
do not really want because they feel that they are too much of a burden
on their carers. Another is the opposite - the fear of those who are
beginning to lose their mental faculties (a situation of which I have
closer knowledge than I would wish) may fear that euthanasia is being
planned for them by their carers - to the distresses both of the aged
person and the unjustly accused carers.
I find it difficult to form a good balance between these two
alternatives. I feel that the current compromise, in satisfactory as it
is, is not nearly as bad as the proponents of either extreme make out.
While it could possibly be improved, I don't think that the extremes of
outright legalisation or of total banning of "assisted deaths" would be
better.
--
@lec Šawley
Peter Ellis
>
>I find it difficult to form a good balance between these two
>alternatives. I feel that the current compromise, in satisfactory as it
>is, is not nearly as bad as the proponents of either extreme make out.
What compromise? To the best of my knowledge, it remains illegal to
assist a suicide in any way.
>
>While it could possibly be improved, I don't think that the extremes of
>outright legalisation or of total banning of "assisted deaths" would be
>better.
But it *is* totally banned!
Peter
Alec Cawley
<pj...@cam.ac.uk> writes
No. Medication can be given for pain relief, even though the person
administering the pain relief may know that it will "shorten" life i.e.
end it quite soon.
Also, there is a lot of well understood turning of blind eyes which
could be stamped out if people wanted.
--
@lec Šawley
David Cameron Staples
locus scripsit:
Where you are, maybe.
Some things that we think of as universal Truths, turn out to be local
traditions. The concept that anything which makes a death more likely is
tantamount to murder is one of them. How close the aid can be to actually
causing death outright before being murder, and how likely death was
before the aid are only two of the variables which make this so hard an
issue to debate calmly and reasonably. The existance of euthenasia laws in
several coutries around the world, however, shows that this is not an
insurmountable problem.
--
David Cameron Staples | staples AT cs DOT mu DOT oz DOT au
Melbourne University | Computer Science | Technical Services
"It's hard to negotiate when the client is sniffing at your
crotch and baying at the moon." -- Lord Julius
Paul Wilkins
> al...@spamspam.co.uk wrote:
>>I find it difficult to form a good balance between these two
>>alternatives. I feel that the current compromise, in satisfactory as it
>>is, is not nearly as bad as the proponents of either extreme make out.
>
> What compromise? To the best of my knowledge, it remains illegal to
> assist a suicide in any way.
There is legal and there is moral, and sometimes the two don't meet.
--
Paul Wilkins
Peter Ellis
>In message <MPG.1a790e2e1...@news.cis.dfn.de>, Peter Ellis
><pj...@cam.ac.uk> writes
>>al...@spamspam.co.uk wrote:
>>>
>>>I find it difficult to form a good balance between these two
>>>alternatives. I feel that the current compromise, in satisfactory as it
>>>is, is not nearly as bad as the proponents of either extreme make out.
>>
>>What compromise? To the best of my knowledge, it remains illegal to
>>assist a suicide in any way.
>>
>>>
>>>While it could possibly be improved, I don't think that the extremes of
>>>outright legalisation or of total banning of "assisted deaths" would be
>>>better.
>>
>>But it *is* totally banned!
>
>No. Medication can be given for pain relief, even though the person
>administering the pain relief may know that it will "shorten" life i.e.
>end it quite soon.
I.e. you are not allowed to do anything specifically for the purpose of
assisting death. However you cut it, that's a ban.
>
>Also, there is a lot of well understood turning of blind eyes which
>could be stamped out if people wanted.
That's true - I'd like to see that "blind eye" formalised and regulated
a bit better, so the boundaries are clearer for all concerned.
Peter
Trevor Marsh
For me this one section marks NW apart (very far apart) from the rest of the
DW series. IMO it was handled much more in DW style in Small Gods. With
this one section TP moved the DW series to new "reality" level and made it
much closer to "Round World".
Trev
Mike Stevens
Depends what country you're in, shirley.
--
Mike Stevens, narrowboat Felis Catus II
Web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
Me cogitare credo, ergo me esse credo. (Rainy Day Carts)
Peter Ellis
>Peter Ellis <pj...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>> al...@spamspam.co.uk wrote:
>>>
>>> I find it difficult to form a good balance between these two
>>> alternatives. I feel that the current compromise, in satisfactory as
>>> it is, is not nearly as bad as the proponents of either extreme make
>>> out.
>>
>> What compromise? To the best of my knowledge, it remains illegal to
>> assist a suicide in any way.
>>
>>>
>>> While it could possibly be improved, I don't think that the extremes
>>> of outright legalisation or of total banning of "assisted deaths"
>>> would be better.
>>
>> But it *is* totally banned!
>
>Depends what country you're in, shirley.
Well, yes, but Alex was posting in favour of (I assume) the current UK
system, since that's where he's based.
Peter
esmi
<norman....@ntlworld.com> wrote
>> with the most parts of the books there are few words that
>> make me upset.
[spoiler space inserted]
>> It's when the watch investigates the Unmentionable HQ. They
>> find all these tortured and broken souls and then:
>> "Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes
>> removed his knife, and...gave what help he could".
>> Boy, that's hard stuff. Does Vimes actually kill (better:
>> murder) them? A few sentences later DEATH has his appearance
>> - with a funny one very contrary to the scene before.
>> Have i got here something _very_ wrong, or did Vimes really
>> do it?
>I think it's a bit harsh to say that Vimes *murders* them.
Is it? My dictionary defines "murder" as:
<quote>
the unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by another
</quote>
What Vimes seems to have done (and I always assumed he had done)
would certainly have been premeditated in that he would have
thought carefully about what he was about to do, why he was doing
it and if it was the best solution.
>These poor souls were so far beyond the help of a doctor that
>leaving them to die a slow painful death (in the company of
>others who have already died that way) would have far more
>cruel. And I don't think Vimes' concience would have allowed
>him just to leave them.
I do appreciate what you mean. "Murder" is a harsh term to use
but I suspect that says more about a western society that prefers
to use slightly distant terms such as "euthanasia" than about the
actions themselves. I suppose we're trying to clarify the motives
behind the killings and whether these would be deemed Good or
Bad.
>This of course raises that tricky question of euthanasia,
>which I personally haven't made my mind up about. It's one of
>those situations where you don't really know how you would act
>unless you were in that position.
Which is probably why I found this scene in Nightwatch
reminiscent of an early scene in Carpe Jugulum where Granny has
to choose between a baby's life and that of its mother. There are
times when somebody has to take these really awful decisions when
it's not so much the choice between good and bad but between the
lesser of two evils. These are the situations that Granny often
finds herself in because everyone else has avoided them whilst
she is the one person who won't back away from a hard choice.
Similarly Vimes seems to have the same "grit" that won't allow
him to back away from difficult choices simply because he doesn't
like the alternatives on offer or doesn't want to take on the
responsibility. He's aware that *someone* has to do *something*
and, if no one else is willing, he'll do it.
So, I see both Granny and Vimes as realists to the extent that
they can make others, who prefer a more rose-tinted reality,
somewhat uncomfortable.
esmi
--
AFP: www.blackwidows.org.uk/afp/
Internet Guide: www.imp-guide.blackwidows.org.uk
Graphic Art: www.deitydiva.co.uk
Web Design: www.blackwidows.org.uk
Duke of URL
Holger Linge <spam5478345...@gmx.de> radiated into the
WorldWideWait:
> I've just finished Night Watch. And while i had no problems
> with the most parts of the books there are few words that
> make me upset.
>
> It's when the watch investigates the Unmentionable HQ. They
> find all these tortured and broken souls and then:
>
> "Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes
> removed his knife, and...gave what help he could".
>
> Boy, that's hard stuff. Does Vimes actually kill (better:
> murder) them?
Trust me, I speak from situational experience. Mercy killing of
irrevocably-slowly-dying torture/disaster victims is NOT murder.
Although it will give you screaming nightmares for years...
Duke of URL
Peter Ellis <pj...@cam.ac.uk> radiated into the WorldWideWait:
Not in the Netherlands.
Crowfoot
<pj...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
I don't think it's possible, though, not really. Seems to me that each
death is too indelibly individual and personal in its details and
implications to be fairly regulable by one set of rules for all; unless
you are Death, of course, in which case --
SMC
--
Crowfoot
Crowfoot
Stevens" <mike...@which.net> wrote:
> Peter Ellis <pj...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > al...@spamspam.co.uk wrote:
> >>
> >> I find it difficult to form a good balance between these two
> >> alternatives. I feel that the current compromise, in satisfactory as
> >> it is, is not nearly as bad as the proponents of either extreme make
> >> out.
> >
> > What compromise? To the best of my knowledge, it remains illegal to
> > assist a suicide in any way.
> >
> >>
> >> While it could possibly be improved, I don't think that the extremes
> >> of outright legalisation or of total banning of "assisted deaths"
> >> would be better.
> >
> > But it *is* totally banned!
>
> Depends what country you're in, shirley.
And what community, and what persons are involved. More discretion is
exercised about such incidents than it might at first appear, since the
effect of the discretion is to mask incidents in which great suffering
has been relieved by mercy-killing despite whatever laws happen to
obtain.
It might be worth remembering that on medieval battlefields an amored
European knight often carried a very slim, finely-pointed dagger called
a "miserecordia" which was designed to be stabbed through a chink in a
downed foe's armor to give him the quick death a fallen fellow warrior
was entitled to when survival was just not going to happen, only lots
of pain. These guys were mostly devout Christians, but they took it
as a given that under extreme circumstances, providing a quick dispatch
trumped a smug certainty of one's own reglious uprightness.
Does anyone know whether men with such actions behind them were expected
to go and confess having killed in this manner to their priests or not?
SMC
--
Crow
Scott Elliott Birch
Lucky for Vimes he wasn't in England, eh?
Scott
Scott Elliott Birch
[spoiler thingy]
>
> Alternatively, you can view this episode as a skilfull way of describing
> just how awful the torture must have been, without having to think of
> gut-turning episodes to describe. These people have been so badly treated,
> there is no way back for them. What awful scenes would Pterry have had to
> describe to give us the same understanding?
>
Absolutely.
Clue: Pterry hinted when he wrote about the "ginger beer treatment".
In the real world, it might not be ginger beer, but the bottles are
not necessarily in one piece, either. Vimes did the best thing that
could be done under the circumstances. There are no torture chambers
in England - so English readers can witter on about euthanasia laws
if they want.
Scott
Lesley Weston
I guess I'm foolhardy too (shirley not!). There is one situation in which,
IMO, there is no question as to the propriety of euthanasia. The final
stages of Alzheimer's disease leave the patient simply not there - there is
no apparent response of any kind to any stimulus, but they are still
breathing and if water and nutrients are give by IV they can continue to
"live" for year or more. The usual solution in North American hospitals,
and I imagine elsewhere, is to deny an IV and also to stop trying to give
food or water by other means. The patient then takes anything up to two
weeks, or possibly even longer, to die. One can be almost certain (but not
100% certain) that the patient is not aware of what is happening, and so
can't be said to be suffering, but the people who care about the patient are
fully aware and their suffering is appalling. This "treatment" was applied
to the mother of a friend of mine; the effect it had on him explains why I
feel so strongly about this.
The hospital staff who do this are convinced that they are not killing
the patient (which would, of course, be against the law), so they won't give
a quick shot of whatever at the point where they decide to stop trying to
give food and water, which would spare everybody concerned this horror. But
if people left children or animals, or anyone else who couldn't prevent it,
to die like this, everybody else would be outraged and would certainly
consider it murder. Since they are killing the patients anyway, it would be
far better to do it humanely; and if euthanasia is proper in this situation,
perhaps it is in *some* others.
So, wrenching this back to being relevant to abp, IMO Vimes did the
right thing.
--
Lesley Weston.
Brightly_coloured_blob is real, so as not to upset the sys-apes, but I don't
actually read anything sent to it before I empty it. To reach me, use lesley
att vancouverbc dott nett, changing spelling and spacing as required.
Lesley Weston
21/01/2004 11:34 PM:
Perhaps at the same time as they were confessing their deadly assaults on
the victims that originally caused the condition which made killing them
necessary. I don't see any moral difference between trying your very best to
kill someone and succeeding, though they should be given credit for not
prolonging the death.
Duke of URL
Scott Elliott Birch <scott...@hotmail.com> radiated into the
WorldWideWait:
Seen the basement of the Tower?
Rgemini
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Holger Linge wrote:
<snip>
> It's when the watch investigates the Unmentionable HQ. They
> find all these tortured and broken souls and then:
>
> "Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes
> removed his knife, and...gave what help he could".
>
> Boy, that's hard stuff. Does Vimes actually kill (better:
> murder) them? A few sentences later DEATH has his appearance
> - with a funny one very contrary to the scene before.
>
> Have i got here something _very_ wrong, or did Vimes really
> do it?
Yes he did - and I hope that I never have to make that choice.
I believe there is a very long tradition of 'ministering to the fallen' on
battlefields, killing those who are so badly injured they will certainly not
survive rather than leaving them to suffer. At that time and in that place,
he and they were in that situation.
For me, the moral issue is not what does the law say, or what does the
established religion say, but what is the least bad outcome that the
protagonist can bring about in an awful situation:
Vimes had two choices only: do nothing about these suffering people, or kill
them quickly. It is clear from the context that none of them could be saved,
or (given his character) he would have done so.
What I don't really understand is that we see mercy-killing as the humane
thing to do with animals but not with people, even in extremis. And I've
known animals that were considerably more self-aware than some hopelessly
ill people. Ah well.
Rgemini
David Cameron Staples
in hoc locus scripsit:
s/no torture chambers/no active torture chambers that anyone knows about/
--
David Cameron Staples | staples AT cs DOT mu DOT oz DOT au
Melbourne University | Computer Science | Technical Services
Laugh while you can, Monkey Boy!
Philip Constable
> In Thu, 22 Jan 2004 11:39:19 -0600, "Duke of URL" <macbenahATkdsiDOTnet>
> in hoc locus scripsit:
>
> > In news:140bc527.04012...@posting.google.com, Scott Elliott
> > Birch <scott...@hotmail.com> radiated into the WorldWideWait:
> >> "Cath Unsworth" <Cat...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
> >> news:<bumth1$qdm$1...@titan.btinternet.com>...
> >>
> >> [spoiler thingy]
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> Alternatively, you can view this episode as a skilfull way of
> >>> describing just how awful the torture must have been, without having to
> >>> think of gut-turning episodes to describe. These people have been so
> >>> badly treated, there is no way back for them. What awful scenes would
> >>> Pterry have had to describe to give us the same understanding?
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Absolutely.
> >>
> >> Clue: Pterry hinted when he wrote about the "ginger beer treatment". In
> >> the real world, it might not be ginger beer, but the bottles are not
> >> necessarily in one piece, either. Vimes did the best thing that could be
> >> done under the circumstances. There are no torture chambers in England -
> >> so English readers can witter on about euthanasia laws if they want.
> >
> > Seen the basement of the Tower?
>
> s/no torture chambers/no active torture chambers that anyone knows about/
A torture chamber is a real-time on-line information retrieval system
Phil
Martin Fleming
If you ever get the chance - take a look at the two signatures in the Tower
of London (I think) that Guy Fawkes gave before and after being put on the
rack.
Before - the flowing script of an educated man in his prime.
After - a barely legible scrawl, that you have to really work hard at to see
the name as fawkes, but it is the same mans writing.
The torture reduced him to nothing, unable to do something a even 4 year old
child could do easily. I can't help but feel he'd have welcomed release at
that moment.
For me this was the most real indication of what torture does to a human. I
feel odd that hearing live testiomany from victims of Pinochet, the Nazis or
PolPot didn't have the impact that little bit of writing did.
Aother point is - if they were rescued, given the 15th Century nature of
Ahnk Morpork(even with it's 21st C overtones), what would their prospects
be? No reconstuctive surgery, no therapy sessions, no welfare state, the
Beggars Guild might have a use for them....... or perhaps they and their
families would be glad to see them mad, or broken dying slow painful deaths
over the coming years.
Boy - that was a lot more serious than I thought it would be.
Oh, and.......... It's a bloody good book.
Martin
robert craine
>
>
> If you ever get the chance - take a look at the two signatures in the Tower
> of London (I think) that Guy Fawkes gave before and after being put on the
> rack.
> Before - the flowing script of an educated man in his prime.
> After - a barely legible scrawl, that you have to really work hard at to see
> the name as fawkes, but it is the same mans writing.
> The torture reduced him to nothing, unable to do something a even 4 year old
> child could do easily. I can't help but feel he'd have welcomed release at
> that moment.
I'd seen that as evidence that they'd broken his fingers or something
similar- i could be wrong.
incidently, although I don't ever want to be euthanased (whatever the
word is). In my opinion existance os better than non-existance, no
matter what the form. Although I except the possibility that there
could be literaly uninmaginable (by me) situations where I might
change my mind.
rob, shuddering slightly at reading, and adding to, this thread.
Stephen Taylor
<Cat...@btopenworld.com> writes
Coincidentally, while I was reading NW at home, when I was out in the
car I was listening to a full cast recording of Philip Pullman's His
Dark Materials Trilogy. There's a scene in the first book (Northern
Lights/Golden Compass is you're merkin) where the villain, Mrs Coulter,
is torturing a witch to gain vital information.
The torture is described in part; how, almost casually, Mrs Coulter
breaks one of the witch's fingers. Others have already been working on
her, and this new pain will break her, and force her to reveal the
secret. She cries out for the Witches' Death to come to her. One of the
witches' leaders has been watching, invisibly. Now she steps forward
and, smiling (because the witches believe their Death is a smiling,
joyful woman) kisses her sister as she tenderly slides a dagger into her
heart. It's an act of love, of kindness. The gift of release.
In the same way, I feel Vimes is giving these people the only kindness
he can. We _know_ he hates killing. It's a counterpoint to Carcer.
Carcer kills strangers with no reason to do so, the implication is that
often he doesn't gain anything, except the thrill of killing. Vimes
gains nothing from killing these strangers (except, perhaps, the ability
to sleep at night?), it's a selfless act.
It is strong stuff, but I think it's right that Pterry is leading us
into new places with his writing. Discworld is world and a mirror of
worlds. We can all think of a roundworld version of the Unmentionables.
Often the Dungeon Dimensions are not somewhere else, they're in the
spaces behind our eyes, in our memory and the thoughts that come when
we're alone in the dark. Vimes will always remember what he saw, and
what he did.
I agree with Cath. Under those circumstances, I can only hope I'd have
the courage to do the same as Vimes.
--
SJT Librarian, Bass player and furry person
Peter Ellis
>In article <bumth1$qdm$1...@titan.btinternet.com>, Cath Unsworth
><Cat...@btopenworld.com> writes
>>
>>"Holger Linge" <spam5478345...@gmx.de> wrote in message
>>news:tfot0050r1qdfb3b6...@4ax.com...
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I've just finished Night Watch. And while i had no problems
>>> with the most parts of the books there are few words that
>>> make me upset.
>>>
>>
>>Spoilers inserted...
>>
>>
>>1
>>
>>
>>2
>>
>>
>>3
>>
>>
>>4
>>
>>
>>5
>>
>>
>>6
>>
>>
>>7
>>
>>
>>8
>>
>>
>>9
>>
>>
>
>the courage to do the same as Vimes.
I don't. This is because I have the humility to realise I'm not
equipped to judge who's going to be traumatised and catatonic for life,
and who's going to rebuild their lives and carry on. No way can you
make that call about someone's future mental state on 5 seconds'
acquaintance, particularly not if they're still in physical pain or
unconscious at the time. I'm in favour of euthanasia in some
circumstances, but it has to be the person's own choice, clearly
articulated when in a fit state to make that decision, not mine.
Now, "In pain, beyond medical help, going to die anyway", I might stand
a fighting chance of guessing. That's why Vimes is in a different
situation, since the medical technology to assist really badly
physically injured people isn't available to him. However, in his
natural timeline, he ought to challenge those impulses now the Igors
are around.
Peter
Baba Yaga
alt.books.pratchett:
>Hi
>
>I've just finished Night Watch. And while i had no problems
>with the most parts of the books there are few words that
>make me upset.
>
>It's when the watch investigates the Unmentionable HQ. They
>find all these tortured and broken souls and then:
>
>"Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes
>removed his knife, and...gave what help he could".
>
>Boy, that's hard stuff. Does Vimes actually kill (better:
>murder) them? A few sentences later DEATH has his appearance
>- with a funny one very contrary to the scene before.
>
>Have i got here something _very_ wrong, or did Vimes really
>do it?
He did.
I think how one understands the act hinges on whether one believes
death is the worst thing, and to be delayed by any means - and on
whether that's self-evident. If you hold that it is self-evident,
then Vimes committed murder, in the full meaning of the word.
If it's arguable that death is sometimes preferable to life, or at
least that a decent man might believe so, then I can see no other
reasonable way of reading the passage than that Vimes did what he
believed to be the best thing for the tortured and broken souls. It
seems to me that even if you disagree with him, the episode reveals
something about Vimes' understanding of life and death, and about the
workings of his moral code. There's generosity and a sort of bravery
in such an act, even if it's wrongheaded.
Baba Yaga
--
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which
there's no good evidence either way.
Bertrand Russell
Terry Pratchett
<spam...@phonecoop.coop> writes
>seems to me that even if you disagree with him, the episode reveals
>something about Vimes' understanding of life and death, and about the
>workings of his moral code. There's generosity and a sort of bravery
>in such an act, even if it's wrongheaded.
And it's arguable -- no, in fact, it's *not* arguable how wrongheaded
this could be in the Ankh-Morpork of the time (which would be barely
Georgian -- today, we'd think differently, and as has been pointed out,
Vimes with an Igor in tow might, too. But this was then.) Vimes ,
veteran of a thousand street fights, would surely know what's survivable
and what is not. These aren't people who've merely met with a nasty
accident, but have been patiently dismembered by inventive experts.
Death would be a release.
--
Terry Pratchett
get starbucks cards
and go buy coffee the pain will go away
Baba Yaga
alt.books.pratchett:
Well, drat it, I go out of my way not to step on H. Linge's feet, &
land squarely on yours. Ain't this communication lark fun?
For the little it's worth, my non-hypothetical view is that Vimes'
actions are morally necessary. (& dramatically, but that's another
matter.)
Terry Pratchett
<spam...@phonecoop.coop> writes
>Well, drat it, I go out of my way not to step on H. Linge's feet, &
>land squarely on yours. Ain't this communication lark fun?
I don't feel trodden on:-) It's just worth keeping in mind that Vimes
isn't operating in 'modern' society and 'wrongheaded' really isn't
really the word.
--
Terry Pratchett
Martin Gradwell
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
"Stephen Taylor" <ste...@hedgehogco.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Z4IFQ2BQ...@hedgehogco.demon.co.uk...
..
> I found this one of the most moving episodes in the book.
> Coincidentally, while I was reading NW at home, when I was out in the
> car I was listening to a full cast recording of Philip Pullman's His
> Dark Materials Trilogy. There's a scene in the first book (Northern
> Lights/Golden Compass is you're merkin) where the villain, Mrs Coulter,
> is torturing a witch to gain vital information.
Actually it's in the second book of the trilogy,
"The Subtle Knife".
>
> The torture is described in part; how, almost casually, Mrs Coulter
> breaks one of the witch's fingers. Others have already been working on
> her, and this new pain will break her, and force her to reveal the
> secret. She cries out for the Witches' Death to come to her. One of the
> witches' leaders has been watching, invisibly. Now she steps forward
> and, smiling (because the witches believe their Death is a smiling,
> joyful woman) kisses her sister as she tenderly slides a dagger into her
> heart. It's an act of love, of kindness. The gift of release.
Not quite the same as the situation in NW, though it is close.
Serafina, the witch leader, is invisible, unexpected, and she has a knife.
She could take out the chief torturer, at least, and it is unlikely that
the other persons present would want to continue the gratuitous
torture without Mrs. Coulter pressing them on (and it is gratuitous.
The villains believe that their alethiometer can tell them anything they
want to know, so it doesn't matter if the witch tells them nothing).
Instead, Serafina chooses to give "the gift of release" to a victim
who admittedly has broken legs and at least one broken finger,
but broken bones can heal.
>
> In the same way, I feel Vimes is giving these people the only kindness
> he can.
Not quite the same. The injuries suffered by the torture victims
in NW are really just hinted at, but the hints are bad enough.
"In pain, beyond medical help, going to die anyway", as Peter
Ellis puts it. That's more than a broken bone or two.
On every level, His Dark Materials is far "darker" than anything
by Pratchett, including NW even though NW is one of Pratchett's
darkest. I would call it evil, since it is all about taking evil acts and
pretending that they are good. In book one Lord Asriel kills an
innocent young boy, deliberately, merely as a means of opening a
portal to another world i.e. out of curiosity, not out of necessity.
Of course Pullman can't depict that as anything other than an
act of villainy in book one - the readers have to be softened
up before Asriel can be transformed into a would-be deicidal
"hero", but by the end of book three he is so transformed. Will,
the hero of book two, is described as a murderer both by himself
and by Lyra, though the first killing he performs is both accidental
and in self defence (he pushes an assailant who trips over the
cat and falls down the stairs). The church (every church) is
descibed as a gang of "child cutters": "they cut their sexual organs,
yes, both boys and girls - they cut them with knives so that they
shan't feel. That is what the church does, and every church is the
same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling."
(book 2, p52 in the Scholastic Press hardback edition).
The episode in His Dark Materials that comes closest in
spirit to the episode in NW is in book three. The ancient
and decrepit god, in his crystal litter, has been ambushed
by cliff-ghasts.
'..the crystal was stained and smeared with mud and the
blood from what the cliff-ghasts had been eating before
they found it. It lay tilted crazily among the rocks, and
inside it -
"Oh, Will, he's still alive! But - the poor thing ..."'
and so on. The expectation is built up that Will will
perform the traditional "act of love, of kindness" but
in fact he can't bring himself to do it. Of couse the
ancient one dies anyway. And that is what would have
happened to the victims of Cable Street too, so that
Vimes's help hardly made any difference, and Will's
inaction hardly made any difference.
HDM is, especially in its latter parts, a torrent of hatred
and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
I am not at all surprised that the trilogy did well in the
Big Read. It is a tale for our times, perfectly suited for
an age and culture which believes in the merits of pre-
emptive war. Still, I can't help feeling a twinge of regret
that our libraries are stocking it in the children's section,
that it is being pushed generally as children's literature.
I can't help thinking that we might have fewer warped
children if such dark materials were reserved for adults
who are equipped with a healthy dose of scepticism,
and aren't likely to accept claims as true merely because
they're embedded in an initially gripping (but later
faltering) story.
Craig A. Finseth
Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
>HDM is, especially in its latter parts, a torrent of hatred
>and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
>happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
...
I disagree strongly: it is a book that has depth and richness. It is
ultimately about two young people having to grow -- very quickly -- to
the point where they need to make a decision that literally affects
their worlds.
It is also a story where the traditonally "good" organizations are
shown to be not good at all and where someone thought to be very "bad"
was in fact very good. Sort of. Its complicated. For example, he
made it clear that many people who are part of the Church would be
aghast if they knew what Mrs. Coulter was doing. So the Church isn't
a monolithic "evil" organization. There are lots of shades of gray and
explorations of good, bad, innocence, control, and other topics.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this series to anyone old enough to
comprehend it. Which includes one of my children but not most adults
(:-)(:-(.
Craig
Mike Stevens
news:bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
> happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
He read William Blake. The whole trilogy is redolent of Blake's ideas.
--
Mike Stevens, narrowboat Felis Catus II
web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
"I'm not an old fart, and I'm not an old bore,
Or a grumpy old b*gg*r like Evelyn Waugh"
(Christopher Matthew)
Jago Illustration
"Craig A. Finseth" <ne...@finseth.com> wrote in message
news:401e70ed$0$41283$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
I'd second this opinion, I think HDM are some of the best books I've ever
read. They truly can be read on many levels. My younger brother read them
when he was about 10 and thought they were great, but completely missed out
on the 'love story' element of the books, which for me was one of the most
poignant aspects of the story. I also love the way that there are very few
wholly good/bad people/organisations, which is of course rather like real
life, it aint black and white.
jago
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.573 / Virus Database: 363 - Release Date: 28/01/2004
Rollasoc
"Mike Stevens" <mike...@which.net> wrote in message
news:bvm3mc$u9f20$1...@ID-170573.news.uni-berlin.de...
> "Martin Gradwell" <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
> news:bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
> > Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > HDM is, especially in its latter parts, a torrent of hatred
> > and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
> > happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
>
> He read William Blake. The whole trilogy is redolent of Blake's ideas.
>
I read HDM about the same time as I read the last Harry Potter book. Given
the amount of publicity about the main character death
in the last HP book and the fact that it was a real anti climax the way it
happened, I hope Rowling learns something from HDM about how to kill off
most of the main characters (which I really think she needs to do over the
next two books). I thought she wimped out quite a lot with the last HP
book.
Stephen Taylor
>Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>"Stephen Taylor" <ste...@hedgehogco.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:Z4IFQ2BQ...@hedgehogco.demon.co.uk...
>..
>> I found this one of the most moving episodes in the book.
>> Coincidentally, while I was reading NW at home, when I was out in the
>> car I was listening to a full cast recording of Philip Pullman's His
>> Dark Materials Trilogy. There's a scene in the first book (Northern
>> Lights/Golden Compass is you're merkin) where the villain, Mrs Coulter,
>> is torturing a witch to gain vital information.
>
>Actually it's in the second book of the trilogy,
>"The Subtle Knife".
>
>>
>> The torture is described in part; how, almost casually, Mrs Coulter
>> breaks one of the witch's fingers. Others have already been working on
>> her, and this new pain will break her, and force her to reveal the
>> secret. She cries out for the Witches' Death to come to her. One of the
>> witches' leaders has been watching, invisibly. Now she steps forward
>> and, smiling (because the witches believe their Death is a smiling,
>> joyful woman) kisses her sister as she tenderly slides a dagger into her
>> heart. It's an act of love, of kindness. The gift of release.
>
>Not quite the same as the situation in NW, though it is close.
>Serafina, the witch leader, is invisible, unexpected, and she has a knife.
>She could take out the chief torturer, at least, and it is unlikely that
>the other persons present would want to continue the gratuitous
>torture without Mrs. Coulter pressing them on (and it is gratuitous.
>The villains believe that their alethiometer can tell them anything they
>want to know, so it doesn't matter if the witch tells them nothing).
But the alethiometer is only as accurate as its user. My impression from
this scene is that the aletheometrist of the party has to work slowly,
checking his books for guidance. It's only Lyra who has the gift of
reading the instrument intuitively.
Mrs Coulter is in a hurry.
I did hope that Serafina would kill Mrs Coulter, although even as I
hoped, I realised it'd be a rather short story without her!
>Instead, Serafina chooses to give "the gift of release" to a victim
>who admittedly has broken legs and at least one broken finger,
>but broken bones can heal.
>
I don't think it's just broken bones that the witch suffers. As in NW, I
think more, and worse, torture is inferred. I read this piece as the
witch having suffered more hurt than was visible.
>> In the same way, I feel Vimes is giving these people the only kindness
>> he can.
>
>Not quite the same. The injuries suffered by the torture victims
>in NW are really just hinted at, but the hints are bad enough.
>"In pain, beyond medical help, going to die anyway", as Peter
>Ellis puts it. That's more than a broken bone or two.
As above.
>
>On every level, His Dark Materials is far "darker" than anything
>by Pratchett, including NW even though NW is one of Pratchett's
>darkest.
I agree.
> I would call it evil, since it is all about taking evil acts and
>pretending that they are good.
I disagree.
I'm not going to try to argue the theological case. Others are more
qualified, and feel more strongly than I ever will. I don't have the
knowledge, nor do I have the strength of faith in any god. I am
disturbed by HDM, in the same way as parts of other books (including
some of Pterry's) disturb me; because they challenge my view of the
world, and they show differences between how I want the world (real or
imagined) to work, and the way it actually does work.
>In book one Lord Asriel kills an
>innocent young boy, deliberately, merely as a means of opening a
>portal to another world i.e. out of curiosity, not out of necessity.
My reading differs from you here. I haven't yet reached the end of Amber
Spyglass, so I don't know how Asriel ends up, but at this point I
understand him as a man driven by an obsession to reach the other world,
and thence to a battle with a God he sees as evil and oppressive. He
sees Roger as a sacrifice, a means to an end that justifies an
"insignificant" death in order to achieve a great goal. I don't think
he's right, but I don't think Roger's death is as gratuitous as you
suggest.
>Of course Pullman can't depict that as anything other than an
>act of villainy in book one - the readers have to be softened
>up before Asriel can be transformed into a would-be deicidal
>"hero", but by the end of book three he is so transformed.
I think you're underestimating both Pullman's writing, and the
intelligence of his readers in this assertion of a cynical "softening
up". In the sense that Asriel commits this first murder as a step to a
greater and more "significant" murder, then of course you're right. But
I don't believe that it's as crass a process as Pullman writing the end
of book one, thinking "If they swallow this, I can get them to swallow
the rest".
>Will,
>the hero of book two, is described as a murderer both by himself
>and by Lyra, though the first killing he performs is both accidental
>and in self defence (he pushes an assailant who trips over the
>cat and falls down the stairs).
Surely the important aspect of that first death is the way that Will
sees himself. In any court, he's guilty of accidentally killing a man
while defending his home. In the UK that's manslaughter at worst. In
Will's mind, he is a murderer. And it's his opinion of himself that the
alethiometer reports to Lyra.
The second death, in the struggle for the subtle knife, is again caused
by Will, but not inflicted directly by him. In both cases, the person
who dies does so because they have allowed their greed to overwhelm
them. In the first case, harassing Will and his mother and trying to
steal Will's father's letters, in the second, by trying to steal the
knife, when Will is the true bearer. Even then Will doesn't kill him,
he's consumed by the spectres.
>The church (every church) is
>descibed as a gang of "child cutters": "they cut their sexual organs,
>yes, both boys and girls - they cut them with knives so that they
>shan't feel. That is what the church does, and every church is the
>same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling."
>(book 2, p52 in the Scholastic Press hardback edition).
Setting aside the question of whether Pullman's overt atheist propaganda
(in attributing the worst actions of some and specific churches and
religions to all of them) is any more flawed than C.S. Lewis' Christian
allegory in the Narnia series, or Tolkein's manufactured mythologism,
this church is the church of Lyra's world, not ours. That world is a
different place, where gypsies travel by water, not by road, where
amberic energy, and not electricity flows, and witches fly.
Isn't the idea of fantasy to take the known and twist it, sometimes by
180 degrees?
>
>The episode in His Dark Materials that comes closest in
>spirit to the episode in NW is in book three. The ancient
>and decrepit god, in his crystal litter, has been ambushed
>by cliff-ghasts.
>
>'..the crystal was stained and smeared with mud and the
>blood from what the cliff-ghasts had been eating before
>they found it. It lay tilted crazily among the rocks, and
>inside it -
>"Oh, Will, he's still alive! But - the poor thing ..."'
>
>and so on. The expectation is built up that Will will
>perform the traditional "act of love, of kindness" but
>in fact he can't bring himself to do it. Of couse the
>ancient one dies anyway. And that is what would have
>happened to the victims of Cable Street too, so that
>Vimes's help hardly made any difference, and Will's
>inaction hardly made any difference.
>
I haven't got this far yet, so can't comment in detail. Dragging
ourselves back to the vaguely relevant, I think Vimes' action _does_
make a difference. Your comparison (not mine, because I haven't got to
this bit yet!) between his offering help to the torture victims, and
Will apparently failing to kill The Authority seems to me (on limited
knowledge) to be a false one. The Cable Street victims were innocent
(insofar as anyone is innocent when, as Vimes knows, everyone's guilty
of something), in Pullman's terms, the Authority is the torturer,
fallen.
>HDM is, especially in its latter parts, a torrent of hatred
>and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
>happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
>I am not at all surprised that the trilogy did well in the
>Big Read. It is a tale for our times, perfectly suited for
>an age and culture which believes in the merits of pre-
>emptive war.
It's also a disturbing and thought provoking read. Surely, if it were
not at least reasonably well-written, it would not provoke such debate.
>Still, I can't help feeling a twinge of regret
>that our libraries are stocking it in the children's section,
>that it is being pushed generally as children's literature.
If you worked where I do, you'd know that "pushing" literature at
children has about the same effect as trying to herd cats! If children
read it (and, I grant you, it's a difficult read) they read it on their
own terms. Marketing and peer pressure might account for book one being
read, but after that, it's down to whether they enjoy it, or get
something out of it.
>I can't help thinking that we might have fewer warped
>children if such dark materials were reserved for adults
>who are equipped with a healthy dose of scepticism,
>and aren't likely to accept claims as true merely because
>they're embedded in an initially gripping (but later
>faltering) story.
>
Oh dear, now you're beginning to make me nervous. To follow this line of
argument to its logical conclusion, should not any books that change or
challenge thinking be reserved for those "equipped" to read them? So
nothing for children except approved material, bland and
unexceptionable. And perhaps some test for adults, to check they have
reached the required ability to be able to healthily question and reject
the dangerous, the uncomfortable, the...heretical?
Anyway, why would children believe one part (the church and God are
evil) as true, when they know that there are no talking bears, witches
on cloud pine branches, etc.? It's also such a demanding read that I
would think that anyone not able to think for themselves about the
issues in the book would lack the ability to get beyond page 4 of the
first part.
I think you're blurring an objection to the book on grounds of faith -
which is your own and nobody should be able to gainsay it, and literary
criticism. You seem to be arguing that it's an evil book, and also that
it's a bad book, in the sense of badly written. If it's an evil book,
badly written, then it'll die a natural death. The novelty will wear off
and any evil it does will be transitory.
Martin Gradwell
"Craig A. Finseth" <ne...@finseth.com> wrote in message
news:401e70ed$0$41283$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> >Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >HDM is, especially in its latter parts, a torrent of hatred
> >and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
> >happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
> ...
>
> I disagree strongly: it is a book that has depth and richness. It is
> ultimately about two young people having to grow -- very quickly -- to
> the point where they need to make a decision that literally affects
> their worlds.
What decision? They cling together, "blindly pressing their faces
towards each other", they speak of love, and we cut away to
another scene. When we return, the children are no longer children,
and suddenly the terrible destructive outflow of vital dust has been
stemmed. Isn't it lucky that the world can be saved just by two
adolescent children doing what comes naturally? And, filled with
love, swearing undying love, the children return home to their
respective worlds and never meet again. Isn't it lucky that they
don't have to meet again, that a one night stand by two children
is entirely sufficient to transform an entire collection of worlds?
But they don't "decide" anything. "*Before they knew how it
happened*, they were clinging together." We are told they were
confused. They went with the flow. And the message is that if
only you too can go with the flow, you too can save a stack of
universes. As if. And they don't really decide to part afterwards
either, it's something forced on them by an implacable set of
natural laws. If you try to live in another universe, your life will
be short, just ten years or so. You can't pay brief visits to other
universes either, it seems, without terrible adverse consequences.
So pure pragmatism forces them to live apart. Only, why
doesn't one of them decide to stay with the other, and hang
the consequences? What's wrong with a short but completely
fulfilled life?
>
> It is also a story where the traditonally "good" organizations are
> shown to be not good at all and where someone thought to be very "bad"
> was in fact very good.
I still prefer my explanation. It's a story where people who
are indubitably extremely bad are *depicted* as if they are
good. And vice versa. Will is called a murderer, when he
isn't. Lord Asriel is a demented child-killer, and yet we're
expected to approve of him because he is anti-God too.
And for a "Republic of Heaven" too, it seems, though he is
always *Lord* Asriel, there's never any "just call me Azzie".
Mrs. Coulter commits every crime imaginable, but in the
end she has some feelings towards her own daughter, so
that's all right then .. and so on. Clergy are particularly
vilified, and their beliefs ridiculed, with God presented as
an incredibly decrepit and impotent usurper. And one
night stands and unfaithfulness are mandatory, dictated
by laws biult into the very fabric of the universe. Will's
father is killed because he refuses to be unfaithful to
Will's mother. Sister Mary gives up her vocation because
she remembers a long-forgotten brief encounter with
a boy, and she decides she wants another encounter
or series of brief encounters with men. And so on.
> Sort of. Its complicated. For example, he
> made it clear that many people who are part of the Church would be
> aghast if they knew what Mrs. Coulter was doing.
That's book one. In books two and three instead of bad
individuals we have bad institutions. "Every church is the
same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling."
And tha's not just true in Lyra's parallel universe. Will is
supposedly from our own universe, and though there
is said to be a vast number of universes they all share
the same Kingdom of Heaven, the same decrepit and
impotent "god", the same weak, vain and stupid angels,
the same dingy and undesirable afterlife. So all the agents
of every church in every universe must be liars and
deceivers. As well as being child-cutters and torturers
and so on.
> So the Church isn't
> a monolithic "evil" organization. There are lots of shades of gray and
> explorations of good, bad, innocence, control, and other topics.
Find a good churchman, anywhere in the trilogy. Otyets Semyon
does put Will up for a while and help him out, but he does also
try to get Will drunk, and would probably betray Will in an instant
if he knew what Will was up to. The Cardinal and his shipboard
entourage are party to torture. Father Gomez is an assassin who
thinks it's OK to kill because he's been given absolution in
advance. The "gobblers", the "child cutters" who inflict enormous
pain and degradation on children, and transform them into zombies
apparently for no better reason than because they can, they are
church-sponsored. And near the end: "It seemed that the power
of the church had increased greatly, and that many brutal laws had
been passed" .. the anti-church message is plugged obsessively.
There are shades of grey - in fact every evil action is shaded
grey, if it isn't painted white - but there are no shades of grey
where the church is concerned.
>
> I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this series to anyone old enough to
> comprehend it. Which includes one of my children but not most adults
> (:-)(:-(.
>
> Craig
We'll probably have to agree to differ on that.
Martin.
Martin Gradwell
"Mike Stevens" <mike...@which.net> wrote in message
news:bvm3mc$u9f20$1...@ID-170573.news.uni-berlin.de...
> news:bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
> > Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > HDM is, especially in its latter parts, a torrent of hatred
> > and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
> > happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
>
> He read William Blake. The whole trilogy is redolent of Blake's ideas.
William Blake was a great metaphysical poet and artist.
Pullman wouldn't know what metaphysics was if it came
up to him and hit him in the face. For him, everything is
physical, so for instance the afterlife takes place in a
dingy set of underground caverns, and escape is simply
a matter of finding a place close enough to the surface
so you can dig a way out.
Blake can talk about the soul wandering through
caverns, but when he does he is using a metaphor.
He doesn't mean that you can inquire meaningfully
about whether the rock in the caverns is sedimentary
or volcanic.
Now I know Terry has Death's domain, but that's
not the same thing. Even when Death is behaving
exactly like a person, you know that in some sense
he is a metaphor too. And besides, he's funny, and
he isn't supposed to be analysed to himself.
You can find the complete poetry and prose of William Blake at
http://www.english.uga.edu/nhilton/Blake/blaketxt1/
and you can search through it all at
http://www.english.uga.edu/Blake_Concordance/
Can you find any idea of Blake that bears even the
slightest resemblance to anything from Pullman?
If you can, I'd be interested to know. I don't mean
mere coincidences of language, like where Blake
paints the "Ancient of Days" and Pullman describes
an "ancient of days". Blake's Ancient is depicted
as a strong and wise creator/designer, nothing like
Pullman's pathetic creature.
Graycat
<mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>"Craig A. Finseth" <ne...@finseth.com> wrote in message
>news:401e70ed$0$41283$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
>> In article <bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
>> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> >Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >HDM is, especially in its latter parts, a torrent of hatred
>> >and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
>> >happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
>> ...
>>
>> I disagree strongly: it is a book that has depth and richness. It is
>> ultimately about two young people having to grow -- very quickly -- to
>> the point where they need to make a decision that literally affects
>> their worlds.
Personally I think it's about the importance of love and being human,
and the dangers of institutions where people think of other people as
things (to bring it slightly R :o) and think dogmatically.
>What decision? They cling together, "blindly pressing their faces
>towards each other", they speak of love, and we cut away to
>another scene. When we return, the children are no longer children,
>and suddenly the terrible destructive outflow of vital dust has been
>stemmed. Isn't it lucky that the world can be saved just by two
>adolescent children doing what comes naturally? And, filled with
>love, swearing undying love, the children return home to their
>respective worlds and never meet again. Isn't it lucky that they
>don't have to meet again, that a one night stand by two children
>is entirely sufficient to transform an entire collection of worlds?
It isn't just a one night stand. They are transformed into Adam and
Eve, again performinng the act that makes us human. The whole book is
about how being "impure" is not a sin but a sign of being human -
knowing the difference between good and evil is a good thing, leaving
the naiveté of childhood behind for the more nuanced thinking of
adults is a good thing.
>But they don't "decide" anything. "*Before they knew how it
>happened*, they were clinging together." We are told they were
>confused. They went with the flow. And the message is that if
>only you too can go with the flow, you too can save a stack of
>universes.
No, it says that if you are unafraid to be human and flawed you can
save yourself.
>As if. And they don't really decide to part afterwards
>either, it's something forced on them by an implacable set of
>natural laws. If you try to live in another universe, your life will
>be short, just ten years or so. You can't pay brief visits to other
>universes either, it seems, without terrible adverse consequences.
>So pure pragmatism forces them to live apart. Only, why
>doesn't one of them decide to stay with the other, and hang
>the consequences? What's wrong with a short but completely
>fulfilled life?
What's wrong with not being a sentimental sop? They are barely in
their teens. Of course your first love will always have a place in
your heart, but they usually aren't who you spend the rest of your
life with. In fact, they usually aren't who you spend the rest of the
year with either, let alone ten. Why would Lyra (who has so far been
the most life affirming person around) suddenly decide that, no, it's
allright to die in a few years. Or Will, who has just discovered that
maybe life is good after all?
>> It is also a story where the traditonally "good" organizations are
>> shown to be not good at all and where someone thought to be very "bad"
>> was in fact very good.
>
>I still prefer my explanation. It's a story where people who
>are indubitably extremely bad are *depicted* as if they are
>good. And vice versa.
It's more a story about how people are neither universally good or
universally evil. However, Pullman, like Pratchett, thinks that
treating people as things is evil (the ultimate sin if you like). Both
Coulter and Asriel are guilty of this, as is the church.
>Will is called a murderer, when he
>isn't. Lord Asriel is a demented child-killer, and yet we're
>expected to approve of him because he is anti-God too.
>And for a "Republic of Heaven" too, it seems, though he is
>always *Lord* Asriel, there's never any "just call me Azzie".
No, he is an overbearing and arrogant bastard, but that doesn't mean
that he can have good ideas, or good intentions. He has however, gone
so deeply nto his purpose that it's twisted him and he can see nothing
else.
>Mrs. Coulter commits every crime imaginable, but in the
>end she has some feelings towards her own daughter, so
>that's all right then .. and so on.
It's not all right, but she does see that Lyra is a person, not an
object to be manipulated, and that goes some way of redeemng her. She
feels love, and that goes further. As I said, the importance of love
is the message in all the books.
>Clergy are particularly
>vilified, and their beliefs ridiculed, with God presented as
>an incredibly decrepit and impotent usurper. And one
>night stands and unfaithfulness are mandatory, dictated
>by laws biult into the very fabric of the universe. Will's
>father is killed because he refuses to be unfaithful to
>Will's mother. Sister Mary gives up her vocation because
>she remembers a long-forgotten brief encounter with
>a boy, and she decides she wants another encounter
>or series of brief encounters with men. And so on.
As before, it's not about the sex. Pullman is against a faith and a
church that is not life affirming (as he sees it), it calls human
drives and pleasures evil, and praises self-denial. To him, that is
evil and any god who wishes that is a false god. A true god would wish
the happiness and fulfillment of his children. He sees the christian
god as a sort of vampire, feeding on our prayers and belief and the
life force and hapiness the church makes us deny ourself by calling
them evil.
>> Sort of. Its complicated. For example, he
>> made it clear that many people who are part of the Church would be
>> aghast if they knew what Mrs. Coulter was doing.
>
>That's book one. In books two and three instead of bad
>individuals we have bad institutions. "Every church is the
>same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling."
>And tha's not just true in Lyra's parallel universe. Will is
>supposedly from our own universe, and though there
>is said to be a vast number of universes they all share
>the same Kingdom of Heaven, the same decrepit and
>impotent "god", the same weak, vain and stupid angels,
>the same dingy and undesirable afterlife.
The afterlife was caused by humans interupting the way the worlds were
supposed to work, wasn't it? The cutting up of the fabrc of the
universe with the subtle knife. That's why they can't go between the
worlds any more, because it drains the world of life force (dust) and
dooms the people to an eternity in hell. Meaning that we shouldn't try
to unravel the world, and things should sometimes not get poked.
>So all the agents
>of every church in every universe must be liars and
>deceivers. As well as being child-cutters and torturers
>and so on.
No, because we do have free will. The teachings of christianity, yes,
Pullman is strongly opposed to them, especially I get the feeling,
catholicism. But I doubt that he thinks that the original message of
Christ is evil. He feels that istitutionalising faith makes it rigid
and unhuman, dogmatic and destructive because it will grow in such a
way that favours the institution and it's members (in this case
priests) rather than the believers themselves. To him, that is evil,
and a corruption of the message of god.
>> So the Church isn't
>> a monolithic "evil" organization. There are lots of shades of gray and
>> explorations of good, bad, innocence, control, and other topics.
>
>Find a good churchman, anywhere in the trilogy. Otyets Semyon
>does put Will up for a while and help him out, but he does also
>try to get Will drunk, and would probably betray Will in an instant
>if he knew what Will was up to. The Cardinal and his shipboard
>entourage are party to torture. Father Gomez is an assassin who
>thinks it's OK to kill because he's been given absolution in
>advance. The "gobblers", the "child cutters" who inflict enormous
>pain and degradation on children, and transform them into zombies
>apparently for no better reason than because they can, they are
>church-sponsored. And near the end: "It seemed that the power
>of the church had increased greatly, and that many brutal laws had
>been passed" .. the anti-church message is plugged obsessively.
>There are shades of grey - in fact every evil action is shaded
>grey, if it isn't painted white - but there are no shades of grey
>where the church is concerned.
See above.
But it's not just the church with is vilified, science too get's a
fair thrashing. The people who capture children and try to purify them
by cutting away their souls are very much like the scientists of the
30s who thought they could improve people by cutting up their brains.
Pullman says that being human is a good thing, and humans, with all
their failings, are beautiful, and especially our ability to love
_with_ it's carnal expression (which is where he most strongly differs
from the church). We are both soul and body, and unlike the church
teaches, both are equally good. We aren't a pure soul trapped in an
unclean and imperfect body - soul and body are one and both neccesary,
take one away and we are no longer human. Being a physical and carnal
creature is a good thing, it's how we were created and how we were
supposed to be. Any attempt to remove our humanity by "purifying" or
"perfecting" us, be it by decree or by knife, religion or science, is
by default evil because it denies the beauty of what we are.
I would be rather surprised if Pullman isn't a quite deeply spiritual
and believing man. He just doesn't like the christianity of the
church.
If you happen to be deeply christian, I can understand how you would
feel strongly against this book. If you, like me, are vaguely spritual
and strongly anti-institution, then it's a very life-affirming ode to
love.
--
Elin
The Tale of Westala and Villtin
http://www.student.lu.se/~his02ero/index.html
From adress valid, but rarely checked. Use Reply-To to contact me
Mike Stevens
> "Mike Stevens" <mike...@which.net> wrote in message
> news:bvm3mc$u9f20$1...@ID-170573.news.uni-berlin.de...
>> "Martin Gradwell" <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
>> news:bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
>>> Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> HDM is, especially in its latter parts, a torrent of hatred
>>> and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
>>> happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
>>
>> He read William Blake. The whole trilogy is redolent of Blake's
>> ideas.
>
> William Blake was a great metaphysical poet and artist.
He was also a highly idiosyncratic political philosopher. Actually I'm
not sure I'd call Blake a metaphysician - more of a mystic. And
certainly not a "metaphysical poet" in the sense in which the phrase is
used in Lit.Crit. - but that may well not be what you meant. There's
a lot of apocalyptic style in Blake's writing.
> Can you find any idea of Blake that bears even the
> slightest resemblance to anything from Pullman?
> If you can, I'd be interested to know.
Well, I was only part-way into the first volume when I'd started spotted
lots of Blake influence. The whole "innocence and experience" thing -
a major theme in the first volume of HDM and the title of a set of Blake
poems.
But most of all, the identification of the Churches with the exploiters.
Blake saw an evil alliance between the Church, the industrialists, the
financiers and the scientists. Read his "Milton" (whose subject was
another great anti-clerical writer) and his "Jerusalem" (not the song
generally known under that title, which is from the preface to "Milton",
but the epic poem called "Jerusalem"). Blake's "dark satanic mills"
refer just as much to churches as they do to factories. In this, Pullman
is very close to Blake. Blakes prime representatives of evil are the
Churches and Isaac Newton, both of which se sees as prime sources of
exploitation.
All in all I felt after reading the whole HDM trilogy that there was so
much of Blake in it that it must have been deliberate on Pullman's part.
But we're getting off-topic for this list, so if we want to continue the
discussion, perhaps we'd better to go e-mail.
--
Mike Stevens, narrowboat Felis Catus II
Web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
No man is an island. So is Man.
Craig A. Finseth
Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>"Craig A. Finseth" <ne...@finseth.com> wrote in message
>news:401e70ed$0$41283$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
>> In article <bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
>> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> >Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I disagree strongly: it is a book that has depth and richness. It is
>> ultimately about two young people having to grow -- very quickly -- to
>> the point where they need to make a decision that literally affects
>> their worlds.
>
>What decision? They cling together, "blindly pressing their faces
>towards each other", they speak of love, and we cut away to
>another scene. When we return, the children are no longer children,
>and suddenly the terrible destructive outflow of vital dust has been
>stemmed. Isn't it lucky that the world can be saved just by two
I didn't read the stemming of the dust as having anything to do with
what the children did just then. The children were "taking a break"
so to speak and events just carried on. This probably explains a lot
of our difference in viewpoint.
>adolescent children doing what comes naturally? And, filled with
>love, swearing undying love, the children return home to their
>respective worlds and never meet again. Isn't it lucky that they
>don't have to meet again, that a one night stand by two children
>is entirely sufficient to transform an entire collection of worlds?
See above.
>But they don't "decide" anything. "*Before they knew how it
Yes, they do. How many 12 year olds do you know that are willing to
make decisions like this? How many adults? I think you're selling
them short.
I agree that we will differ.
Craig
Martin Gradwell
"Graycat" <gra...@passagen.se> wrote in message
news:a5pu10528cgau6rhe...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 01:04:28 -0000, "Martin Gradwell"
> <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Craig A. Finseth" <ne...@finseth.com> wrote in message
> >news:401e70ed$0$41283$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
> >> In article <bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> >> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> >> >Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
Just HDM now, but with some references to Small Gods.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
..
> >Isn't it lucky that they
> >don't have to meet again, that a one night stand by two children
> >is entirely sufficient to transform an entire collection of worlds?
>
> It isn't just a one night stand. They are transformed into Adam and
> Eve, again performinng the act that makes us human.
.. and doing it just the once, and parting irrevocably, but that's
OK because they will no doubt do it with others. Not quite the
same as the original Adam and Eve.
> The whole book is
> about how being "impure" is not a sin but a sign of being human -
> knowing the difference between good and evil is a good thing, leaving
> the naiveté of childhood behind for the more nuanced thinking of
> adults is a good thing.
But what they do is not nuanced thinking. It hardly qualifies
as thinking at all. It is a surrender to instinct. They are far
more adult, and far more aware of the distinction between
good and evil, in the earlier books.
>
> >But they don't "decide" anything. "*Before they knew how it
> >happened*, they were clinging together." We are told they were
> >confused. They went with the flow. And the message is that if
> >only you too can go with the flow, you too can save a stack of
> >universes.
>
> No, it says that if you are unafraid to be human and flawed you can
> save yourself.
More than that, surely. A whole planet is dying, because the "dust"
is flowing out of it. The giant trees on which so many creatures depend
are falling, one by one. And all the dust needs, to stem the flow, is a
focal point. And children don't attract dust, only adults do that. So
by "becoming adults", by, you know, stroking each other's daemons,
the children provide the focal point. And they only need to do it the
once. Which is just as well because there are implacable laws of
nature which ordain that every human relationship must be fleeting,
and anyone anywhere who tries to go against those laws is visited
with terrible punishments.
.
> > .. So pure pragmatism forces them to live apart. Only, why
> >doesn't one of them decide to stay with the other, and hang
> >the consequences? What's wrong with a short but completely
> >fulfilled life?
>
> What's wrong with not being a sentimental sop? They are barely in
> their teens. Of course your first love will always have a place in
> your heart, but they usually aren't who you spend the rest of your
> life with. In fact, they usually aren't who you spend the rest of the
> year with either, let alone ten.
But a few lines ago they were the new Adam and the new Eve.
So which is it? Puppy love, or the ushering in of a Brave New
World? Both?
Why would Lyra (who has so far been
> the most life affirming person around) suddenly decide that, no, it's
> allright to die in a few years. Or Will, who has just discovered that
> maybe life is good after all?
Earlier Lyra had been willing to undergo terrible risks,
any one of which could have resulted in death in seconds,
never mind years. She had even courted death, quite
literally, in order to make her personal "Death of Lyra"
appear and conduct her to the underworld; where she
parted with her daemon, which is the mark of being alive.
She had the remote prospect of returning, but in every
other respect she was dead. And she had argued strongly
and eloquently for this "death". But at the end of the
story, after all she has been through, she becomes just
a careful conservative whose biggest adventure will be
re-learning how to use the alethiometer.
..
> It's more a story about how people are neither universally good or
> universally evil. However, Pullman, like Pratchett, thinks that
> treating people as things is evil (the ultimate sin if you like). Both
> Coulter and Asriel are guilty of this, as is the church.
Pratchett certainly sees that. Which is why I like Pratchett
as much as I dislike Pullman. And you think Pullman is like
Prachett, but I can't see it. I'd like to get back to relevance
by explaining how I can like Small Gods and dislike HDM
when both are highly critical of a corrupt church, but I can't
find my copy of SG so I'd have to work from memory.
The best I can do is mention the Unorthodox Potato Church,
the one presumably inspired by a certain Mr. Tulip. It may
be a bad church, it may be ridiculous, but it isn't real and
we know it isn't. The Omnian church may have a lot of
resonances with real churches, but again we know it isn't
real. And any implied criticism of real churches in Pratchett
is justified because real churches have done reprehensible
things, such as the inquisition. The failings Pratchett focuses
on are real failings.
Pullman begins by describing an imaginary church, but
in books 2 and 3 he makes it clear that the criticism extends
to every church, and it is not focused un any real flaws, but
on unsupported assertions. All churches are child-cutters,
child-torturers, child molesters, destroyers of freedom and
initiative, built on a lie, pretending to serve God but actually
self-serving. And God is "at some inconceivable age, decrepit
and demented, unable to act or think or speak and unable to
die, a rotten hulk". And the afterlife is actually a cruel and
dreary prison camp.instituted by God in his younger, fitter
days just so we can know that he is cruel as well as decrepit
and demented and impotent. And there is no Christ anywhere,
and not even the hint of one, so that Will and Lyra are the
closest thing anyone has to a saviour.
Can you see the difference?
>
> >Will is called a murderer, when he
> >isn't. Lord Asriel is a demented child-killer, and yet we're
> >expected to approve of him because he is anti-God too.
> >And for a "Republic of Heaven" too, it seems, though he is
> >always *Lord* Asriel, there's never any "just call me Azzie".
>
> No, he is an overbearing and arrogant bastard, but that doesn't mean
> that he can have good ideas, or good intentions. He has however, gone
> so deeply nto his purpose that it's twisted him and he can see nothing
> else.
You see through him, at least partially (I presume that the
first can should be can't). But being an overbearing and arrogant
bastard is the least of his crimes. Thinking that the end justifies
the means, that it's OK to kill kids if your purpose is "high" enough,
that is the worst of his crimes, and in book 1 that seems to be
clear enough. But in book 3 we have all this nonsense about the
"Republic of Heaven", which isn't worth the death of a fly never
mind the death of a child. It's all intended to confuse, to defend
the indefensible.
>
> >Mrs. Coulter commits every crime imaginable, but in the
> >end she has some feelings towards her own daughter, so
> >that's all right then .. and so on.
>
> It's not all right, but she does see that Lyra is a person, not an
> object to be manipulated, and that goes some way of redeemng her. She
> feels love, and that goes further. As I said, the importance of love
> is the message in all the books.
Love certainly helps, but for someone who has committed
as many crimes as Mrs Coulter a little remorse too wouldn't
be amiss. And love for one's own offspring is only what
comes naturally to most people. It does transform Mrs Coulter
back into a human being, where previously she was some
sort of monster, but that's as far as her redemption goes.
Had she lived beyond the end of the book, the suspicion has
to be that she would still have been a scheming torturer
>
> As before, it's not about the sex. Pullman is against a faith and a
> church that is not life affirming (as he sees it), it calls human
> drives and pleasures evil, and praises self-denial. To him, that is
> evil and any god who wishes that is a false god. A true god would wish
> the happiness and fulfillment of his children. He sees the christian
> god as a sort of vampire, feeding on our prayers and belief and the
> life force and hapiness the church makes us deny ourself by calling
> them evil.
Yes, that's how he sees it, or at least how he tells it. And you don't
see anything wrong with that? But, just suppose that the churches
weren't all entirely composed of deluded pleasure-hating monsters.
In that case, wouldn't there be something wrong with such divisive,
hateful and hate-inspiring labelling of entire huge sections of society?
Suppose Pullman was to say the same things about Jews that he
says about Christians? Don't you think there'd be an uproar?
And yet he does. "I have travelled in the south lands. There are
churches there, believe me, that cut their children too .. they cut
their sexual organs, yes, both boys and girls - they cut them with
knives so that they shan't feel" is a reference to the jewish practice
of male circumcision, and the practice in some animistic and muslim
tribes of female circumcision. "And every church is the same".
To Pullman, Christian, jew, muslim or whatever, it's all the same,
it's all "the Church", and all to be tarred with the same brush.
Only atheism, devil-worship and maybe wicca are exempt.
> >..Will is
> >supposedly from our own universe, and though there
> >is said to be a vast number of universes they all share
> >the same Kingdom of Heaven, the same decrepit and
> >impotent "god", the same weak, vain and stupid angels,
> >the same dingy and undesirable afterlife.
>
> The afterlife was caused by humans interupting the way the worlds were
> supposed to work, wasn't it?
No. The world of the dead "is a prison camp. The
authority established it in the early ages" according to
Balthamos. See the "Balthamos and Baruch" chapter
in book 3.
> The cutting up of the fabrc of the
> universe with the subtle knife. That's why they can't go between the
> worlds any more, because it drains the world of life force
It was never possible to go between worlds without adverse
consequences. There are only two known ways for humans to
traverse between worlds, in Pullman's universe. 1) using the
subtle knife, and 2) sacrificing children. Both have their drawbacks.
Pullman's message is there's millions of fascinating worlds, and
for a while huge vistas seemed to open up, with the possibility
of free travel between them all, but in reality you're stuck in
whatever dead end you're presently occupying. And when you
die you die, and that's the end of it, and you should think yourself
lucky because it used to be worse. Or you could sacrifice
children, or have the knife reconstituted and never mind the
terrible consequences. Why not, if it's for a noble purpose?
..
>
> No, because we do have free will. The teachings of christianity, yes,
> Pullman is strongly opposed to them, especially I get the feeling,
> catholicism. But I doubt that he thinks that the original message of
> Christ is evil.
I don't see how you can infer this. He never mentions Christ.
He presents a "Christianity" without any Christ, without even
the slightest hint of one. And Christ's message wasn't just
"be nice to one another - why not?"; it was rooted firmly in
a belief in a loving Father/Creator God, which Pullman explicitly
rejects.
..
>
> But it's not just the church with is vilified, science too get's a
> fair thrashing. The people who capture children and try to purify them
> by cutting away their souls are very much like the scientists of the
> 30s who thought they could improve people by cutting up their brains.
.. and they are described by Pullman as "experimental theologians".
..
>We are both soul and body, and unlike the church
> teaches, both are equally good. We aren't a pure soul trapped in an
> unclean and imperfect body
I don't know of any religion that says that we are.
- soul and body are one and both neccesary,
> take one away and we are no longer human.
In other words
"Body and Soul but Truly One
The human person, created in the image of God,
is a being at once both corporeal and spiritual"
From the "Catechism of the Catholic Church". p82.
> Being a physical and carnal
> creature is a good thing, it's how we were created and how we were
> supposed to be. Any attempt to remove our humanity by "purifying" or
> "perfecting" us, be it by decree or by knife, religion or science, is
> by default evil because it denies the beauty of what we are.
>
> I would be rather surprised if Pullman isn't a quite deeply spiritual
> and believing man. He just doesn't like the christianity of the
> church.
Believing in what? In a vicious and depraved but fortunately
impotent god? In a meaningless and implacable universe that
forces people to live in their own little islands and destroys or
at best thwarts them when they try to reach out? In grabbing
as much experience as you can while alive, because when
you're dead you're dead? In a terrible world packed full of
child-torturers and killers who don't even realsie that that's
what they are?
>
> If you happen to be deeply christian, I can understand how you would
> feel strongly against this book. If you, like me, are vaguely spritual
> and strongly anti-institution, then it's a very life-affirming ode to
> love.
We really will have to agree to differ.
Martin Gradwell
> In article <bvmvg3$vcm$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> >
> >"Craig A. Finseth" <ne...@finseth.com> wrote in message
> >news:401e70ed$0$41283$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
> >> In article <bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> >> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> >> >Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
Just HDM now.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> ...
> > we cut away to
> >another scene. When we return, the children are no longer children,
> >and suddenly the terrible destructive outflow of vital dust has been
> >stemmed. Isn't it lucky that the world can be saved just by two
>
> I didn't read the stemming of the dust as having anything to do with
> what the children did just then. The children were "taking a break"
> so to speak and events just carried on. This probably explains a lot
> of our difference in viewpoint.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding some aspects of HDM, but
this one is actually pretty well signposted.
As I've just said in another post in this thread:
"A whole planet is dying, because the "dust" is flowing out of it.
The giant trees on which so many creatures depend are falling,
one by one. And all the dust needs, to stem the flow, is a focal
point. And children don't attract dust, only adults do that. So
by "becoming adults", by, you know, stroking each other's
daemons, the children provide the focal point."
This explanation is reaffirmed several times, in the book
e.g. "The Dust pouring down from the stars had found a
living home again, and these children-no-longer-children,
saturated with love, were the cause of it all".
>
> >adolescent children doing what comes naturally? And, filled with
> >love, swearing undying love, the children return home to their
> >respective worlds and never meet again. Isn't it lucky that they
> >don't have to meet again, that a one night stand by two children
> >is entirely sufficient to transform an entire collection of worlds?
>
> See above.
>
> >But they don't "decide" anything. "*Before they knew how it
>
> Yes, they do. How many 12 year olds do you know that are willing to
> make decisions like this?
Only confused ones, who don't really know what they are getting
into. That's why it's so important not to confuse 12-year-olds.
Rgemini
far more cogent and clearly reasoned form than I ever could.
In matters of faith I am humanist and a-gnostic, but know well enough the
teachings of Christ and how they have been corrupted over the years by
deluded or self-seeking people, and how that corruption became the
established church. But that does not make Pullman's HDM worldview in any
way acceptable to me, and I recognise the good things that have been done as
well as the repellant.
What I don't understand is how the religious zealots who see evil in Harry
Potter and try to ban it don't make a much bigger fuss over HDM, which as
far as I can see promotes every heresy that's ever been!
On a different tack, I was given HDM for christmas and read the entire
trilogy in one, seven-hour sitting. OK I finished at 3am and wasn't up to
much next day, but I wanted to see how it all ended and you know how it is
...
Rgemini
weirdwolf
@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk:
>
> "Graycat" <gra...@passagen.se> wrote in message
> news:a5pu10528cgau6rhe...@4ax.com...
>> On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 01:04:28 -0000, "Martin Gradwell"
>> <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Craig A. Finseth" <ne...@finseth.com> wrote in message
>> >news:401e70ed$0$41283$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
>> >> In article <bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
>> >> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> >> >Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
>
> Just HDM now, but with some references to Small Gods.
>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
> ..
>> >Isn't it lucky that they
>> >don't have to meet again, that a one night stand by two children
>> >is entirely sufficient to transform an entire collection of worlds?
>>
>> It isn't just a one night stand. They are transformed into Adam and
>> Eve, again performinng the act that makes us human.
>
> .. and doing it just the once, and parting irrevocably, but that's
> OK because they will no doubt do it with others. Not quite the
> same as the original Adam and Eve.
Hmm well the mythical adam and eve didn't really have much of a choice of
partners did they?
Unless of course you include Lillith as the earliest divorce...
They parted because they had to, the kingdom of heaven had been overthrown
and the gaps between the realities were allowing the erm wraith thingies
through.
They never gave up there love for one another, but circumstances forced
them apart. They chose to live apart for the good of the creatures who
inhabit the multiverse, to try and form a better reality for all people, a
greater cause I couldn't imagine.
I would imagine that as a catholic the giving up of the transient love
between two people in order to dedicate a life to a faith and pupose of
creating a better world, after all isn't that what catholic priests are
supposed to be doing.
Ted
--
Evil is such a negative term........
I prefer differently moraled.
\ /
0 0
°
~
Y
Mengmeng Zhang
[snip]
> To Pullman, Christian, jew, muslim or whatever, it's all the same,
> it's all "the Church", and all to be tarred with the same brush.
> Only atheism, devil-worship and maybe wicca are exempt.
Ok, I too am not terribly fond of the unsubtleness of HDM as compared to
for example SG, but I certainly don't hate the trilogy like you seem to.
But this statement of yours just has me going WTF?! Atheism I can see,
Wicca I can see. But devil-worship? You can't really worship the devil
if you don't think he exists.
Or am I one of those hapless people being tricked by the devil into
doing his work by not embracing Christ? Sorry for the straw man, but
there's _nothing_ in HDM to suggest approval of "devil-worship". Geez.
(no pun intended)
MZ
weirdwolf
@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
Even the wiccan aspect is strained to say the least, just because it
says witch doesn't mean to say that it's wicca.
Wicca is a modern "religion" not more than what 100 years old.
Graycat
<mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>"Graycat" <gra...@passagen.se> wrote in message
>news:a5pu10528cgau6rhe...@4ax.com...
>> On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 01:04:28 -0000, "Martin Gradwell"
>> <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Craig A. Finseth" <ne...@finseth.com> wrote in message
>> >news:401e70ed$0$41283$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
>> >> In article <bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
>> >> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> >> >Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
>
>Just HDM now, but with some references to Small Gods.
>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
I think you are looking too much at the text, and failing to see
through it, it's like when you drive a car, you can't look _at_ the
windshield, you have to look through it. Now, just so you know, I
don't think Pullman is as good as Pratchett, and I thought the series
got clumsier and more self serving as it went, but I still liked it
well enough.
>> It isn't just a one night stand. They are transformed into Adam and
>> Eve, again performinng the act that makes us human.
>
>.. and doing it just the once, and parting irrevocably, but that's
>OK because they will no doubt do it with others. Not quite the
>same as the original Adam and Eve.
No, but it's symbolical. That one act is all that is required, for
those few minutes they are Adam and Eve, and then they are Will and
Lyra again. They are performing a function which is not dependent on
them being them, just them being two people.
>> The whole book is
>> about how being "impure" is not a sin but a sign of being human -
>> knowing the difference between good and evil is a good thing, leaving
>> the naiveté of childhood behind for the more nuanced thinking of
>> adults is a good thing.
>
>But what they do is not nuanced thinking. It hardly qualifies
>as thinking at all. It is a surrender to instinct. They are far
>more adult, and far more aware of the distinction between
>good and evil, in the earlier books.
Yes, but Pullman has chosen to use sex as the boundary between child
and adult, a distinction he is hardly alone in making.
>> No, it says that if you are unafraid to be human and flawed you can
>> save yourself.
>
>More than that, surely. A whole planet is dying, because the "dust"
>is flowing out of it. The giant trees on which so many creatures depend
>are falling, one by one.
Yes, but how do you write a children's adventure story without an
adventure? The grand plot of saving the worlds is narrative
causuality, a device to underscore the importance of what he saying.
The words aren't supposed to be taken literally.
>And all the dust needs, to stem the flow, is a
>focal point. And children don't attract dust, only adults do that. So
>by "becoming adults", by, you know, stroking each other's daemons,
>the children provide the focal point. And they only need to do it the
>once. Which is just as well because there are implacable laws of
>nature which ordain that every human relationship must be fleeting,
>and anyone anywhere who tries to go against those laws is visited
>with terrible punishments.
Where do you get that? Human emotion often is fleeting, but I can't
remember him saying that they have to be, or that it's a good thing,
it just isn't neccesairly the end of the world.
>> > .. So pure pragmatism forces them to live apart. Only, why
>> >doesn't one of them decide to stay with the other, and hang
>> >the consequences? What's wrong with a short but completely
>> >fulfilled life?
>>
>> What's wrong with not being a sentimental sop? They are barely in
>> their teens. Of course your first love will always have a place in
>> your heart, but they usually aren't who you spend the rest of your
>> life with. In fact, they usually aren't who you spend the rest of the
>> year with either, let alone ten.
>
>But a few lines ago they were the new Adam and the new Eve.
>So which is it? Puppy love, or the ushering in of a Brave New
>World? Both?
Yes, both. Through their puppy love, if you like, they perform the act
that makes the dust flow stop, making them symbolically Adam and Eve.
> Why would Lyra (who has so far been
>> the most life affirming person around) suddenly decide that, no, it's
>> allright to die in a few years. Or Will, who has just discovered that
>> maybe life is good after all?
>
>Earlier Lyra had been willing to undergo terrible risks,
>any one of which could have resulted in death in seconds,
>never mind years. She had even courted death, quite
>literally, in order to make her personal "Death of Lyra"
>appear and conduct her to the underworld; where she
>parted with her daemon, which is the mark of being alive.
>She had the remote prospect of returning, but in every
>other respect she was dead. And she had argued strongly
>and eloquently for this "death".
First of all, I don't think that she really for a second thinks that
she willactually die - she believes in stories, and in stories the
hero aöways comes through. Secondly, she had a purpose that was larger
than herself at the time, she was saving the world.
>But at the end of the
>story, after all she has been through, she becomes just
>a careful conservative whose biggest adventure will be
>re-learning how to use the alethiometer.
No, her biggest adventure will be life, with all that it brings of
joy, sorrow, love, exploration, hate, sex, food and everything else.
>> It's more a story about how people are neither universally good or
>> universally evil. However, Pullman, like Pratchett, thinks that
>> treating people as things is evil (the ultimate sin if you like). Both
>> Coulter and Asriel are guilty of this, as is the church.
> And any implied criticism of real churches in Pratchett
>is justified because real churches have done reprehensible
>things, such as the inquisition. The failings Pratchett focuses
>on are real failings.
>Pullman begins by describing an imaginary church, but
>in books 2 and 3 he makes it clear that the criticism extends
>to every church, and it is not focused un any real flaws, but
>on unsupported assertions.
Unsupported assertions which he believes are true, it's a work of
fiction, not a work of science. You don't agree with his opinion, as
is your right, but he is entitled to his opinion. And I don't think
that he is all wrong. Yes the church has in the past been guilty of
great crimes, but it is not all clean now either. Many evils have been
done in the name of the church in quite recent times - read up on the
Magdalene Convents in Ireland or the child abuse accusations against
priests just recently for some highly relevant examples. The christian
faith as taught by the church and religious schools can be (and often
is, even more often was a few decades back) very opressive and
life-denying.
>All churches are child-cutters,
>child-torturers, child molesters, destroyers of freedom and
>initiative, built on a lie, pretending to serve God but actually
>self-serving. And God is "at some inconceivable age, decrepit
>and demented, unable to act or think or speak and unable to
>die, a rotten hulk". And the afterlife is actually a cruel and
>dreary prison camp.instituted by God in his younger, fitter
>days just so we can know that he is cruel as well as decrepit
>and demented and impotent.
No. The entity the _church_ thinks is God is cruel, decrepit, demented
and impotent. Meaning that the _teachings_ of the church as an
institution are that way.
>And there is no Christ anywhere,
>and not even the hint of one, so that Will and Lyra are the
>closest thing anyone has to a saviour.
Yes, and what is so awful about that?
>> >Will is called a murderer, when he
>> >isn't. Lord Asriel is a demented child-killer, and yet we're
>> >expected to approve of him because he is anti-God too.
>> >And for a "Republic of Heaven" too, it seems, though he is
>> >always *Lord* Asriel, there's never any "just call me Azzie".
>>
>> No, he is an overbearing and arrogant bastard, but that doesn't mean
>> that he can have good ideas, or good intentions. He has however, gone
>> so deeply nto his purpose that it's twisted him and he can see nothing
>> else.
>
>You see through him, at least partially (I presume that the
>first can should be can't).
Yes, it should :o)
>But being an overbearing and arrogant
>bastard is the least of his crimes. Thinking that the end justifies
>the means, that it's OK to kill kids if your purpose is "high" enough,
>that is the worst of his crimes, and in book 1 that seems to be
>clear enough. But in book 3 we have all this nonsense about the
>"Republic of Heaven", which isn't worth the death of a fly never
>mind the death of a child. It's all intended to confuse, to defend
>the indefensible.
Which is? The opinion that the church as an institution teaches
opressive and spirit-killing things? I don't think that's an
indefensible opinion at all. I mightn't always agree with it, but I'm
pretty sure I could defend it f I tried.
>> >Mrs. Coulter commits every crime imaginable, but in the
>> >end she has some feelings towards her own daughter, so
>> >that's all right then .. and so on.
>>
>> It's not all right, but she does see that Lyra is a person, not an
>> object to be manipulated, and that goes some way of redeemng her. She
>> feels love, and that goes further. As I said, the importance of love
>> is the message in all the books.
>
>Love certainly helps, but for someone who has committed
>as many crimes as Mrs Coulter a little remorse too wouldn't
> be amiss. And love for one's own offspring is only what
>comes naturally to most people. It does transform Mrs Coulter
>back into a human being, where previously she was some
>sort of monster, but that's as far as her redemption goes.
>Had she lived beyond the end of the book, the suspicion has
>to be that she would still have been a scheming torturer
Yes, probably. But see, Pullman says that being human is enough. You
can be a good human, or a bad human, but as long as you are still
human all hope is not lost.
>> As before, it's not about the sex. Pullman is against a faith and a
>> church that is not life affirming (as he sees it), it calls human
>> drives and pleasures evil, and praises self-denial. To him, that is
>> evil and any god who wishes that is a false god. A true god would wish
>> the happiness and fulfillment of his children. He sees the christian
>> god as a sort of vampire, feeding on our prayers and belief and the
>> life force and hapiness the church makes us deny ourself by calling
>> them evil.
>
>Yes, that's how he sees it, or at least how he tells it. And you don't
>see anything wrong with that?
No, not really. I don't live in accordance with what the church
teaches, nor have I ever wished to or ever intended to teach my
children to. I don't believe in christianity and the christian god. I
don't think sex is a sin, I don't think homosexuality is a sin - in
fact, I don't believe in sin at all. I don't believe in an afterlife
so I see no point in emotionally and sensually starving yourself in
this life just so you can have it all perfect in the next one. I don't
approve of complete hedonism and selfishness, but IMO the step from
here to there is quite a large one. I do however think that humans are
flawed, and beutiful because they are.
>But, just suppose that the churches
>weren't all entirely composed of deluded pleasure-hating monsters.
>In that case, wouldn't there be something wrong with such divisive,
>hateful and hate-inspiring labelling of entire huge sections of society?
I don't think that churches are all entirely composed of deluded
pleasure-hating monsters. But I do think there is a lot to be said
against the way that faith has been used by the church and
representatives of the church around the world - and the ways in which
it is still being used. As for the propagandising, well, I thought it
was clumsy and heavy handed. But "let's all be nice, in a nuanced way
understanding of the merits of all viewpoints" is, while being a
really really good way to live, a really really lousy slogan. I would
hope that any child who read this would have other sources of opinion
and information as well - but I don't see it as damaging.
>Suppose Pullman was to say the same things about Jews that he
>says about Christians? Don't you think there'd be an uproar?
There probably would. But then again, he isn't talking about an ethnic
group or a people, but about an ideological group - if he had said the
same things about nazis, would you have been as upset?
>And yet he does. "I have travelled in the south lands. There are
>churches there, believe me, that cut their children too .. they cut
>their sexual organs, yes, both boys and girls - they cut them with
>knives so that they shan't feel" is a reference to the jewish practice
>of male circumcision, and the practice in some animistic and muslim
>tribes of female circumcision. "And every church is the same".
>To Pullman, Christian, jew, muslim or whatever, it's all the same,
>it's all "the Church", and all to be tarred with the same brush.
Yes, because he thinks that institutionalised religion is evil in that
it stifles and tries to control - and brand as evil - human instinct,
feeling and pleasure, human spirit. And a point to remember is that
Judaism, Christianity and Islam have the same root and many traits in
common. As for female circumsicion I have to say that I too think it's
an abomination.
>Only atheism, devil-worship and maybe wicca are exempt.
Huh? He says nothing against believing something other than what the
church preaches, he says nothing about satanism at all and wicca is,
as someone else has pointed out, a modern religion, and the existence
of witches does not equal the approval of wicca.
>> >..Will is
>> >supposedly from our own universe, and though there
>> >is said to be a vast number of universes they all share
>> >the same Kingdom of Heaven, the same decrepit and
>> >impotent "god", the same weak, vain and stupid angels,
>> >the same dingy and undesirable afterlife.
>>
>> The afterlife was caused by humans interupting the way the worlds were
>> supposed to work, wasn't it?
>
>No. The world of the dead "is a prison camp. The
>authority established it in the early ages" according to
>Balthamos. See the "Balthamos and Baruch" chapter
>in book 3.
Ok, my mistake.
>> The cutting up of the fabrc of the
>> universe with the subtle knife. That's why they can't go between the
>> worlds any more, because it drains the world of life force
>
>It was never possible to go between worlds without adverse
>consequences.
The "any more" was intended as reference to the earlier mention of
Will and Lyra not being able to stay together.
>Pullman's message is there's millions of fascinating worlds, and
>for a while huge vistas seemed to open up, with the possibility
>of free travel between them all, but in reality you're stuck in
>whatever dead end you're presently occupying.
Only if you believe that the living world is indeed a dead end, as he
doesn't and as I don't either. I believe that there is no afterlife,
but that doesn't mean that I believe that existance is pointless and
there is nothing to strive for. All he says is that we shouldn't try
to enforce our will on the natural order of things.
>And when you
>die you die, and that's the end of it, and you should think yourself
>lucky because it used to be worse.
No, when you die you become part of the life force infusing every
living thing. It his version of nirvana, the ending of the self and
the assmiliation into the "world-soul", or, in this case, life force
of the world.
>> No, because we do have free will. The teachings of christianity, yes,
>> Pullman is strongly opposed to them, especially I get the feeling,
>> catholicism. But I doubt that he thinks that the original message of
>> Christ is evil.
>
>I don't see how you can infer this. He never mentions Christ.
>He presents a "Christianity" without any Christ, without even
>the slightest hint of one.
I'm just guessing. As far as I understand it Christ's original message
was one of love, not one of opression. That the God of the old
testament wasn't God as he really is. He is not someone to be feared,
but a being of love, not someone who wishes to supress humanity but
someone who loves it and forgives us our flaws.
>And Christ's message wasn't just
>"be nice to one another - why not?"; it was rooted firmly in
>a belief in a loving Father/Creator God, which Pullman explicitly
>rejects.
No, but he rejects the idea that such a loving Father/Creator would
wish us to supress that which makes us human and that which we find
pleasurable. He rejects the church's idea of sin and the idea that to
be worthy and good human beings we have to deny ourselves that which
makes life beautiful and pleasurable. Any god who does wish the things
that the curch teaches us that he wishes, is a false god, in Pullmans
view.
>> But it's not just the church with is vilified, science too get's a
>> fair thrashing. The people who capture children and try to purify them
>> by cutting away their souls are very much like the scientists of the
>> 30s who thought they could improve people by cutting up their brains.
>
>.. and they are described by Pullman as "experimental theologians".
Because there is no other science in Lyra's world.
>>We are both soul and body, and unlike the church
>> teaches, both are equally good. We aren't a pure soul trapped in an
>> unclean and imperfect body
>
>I don't know of any religion that says that we are.
It's a christian idea. For that matter it's present in Buddhism and
Hinduism as well.
General Christian thought during medieval times and up until the
Enlightenment has been that the soul is the higher part of our being.
It's influenced by greek filosophy. To take one common example, from
medieval times:
A woman can have one of three roles in society; maiden, wife or whore.
Of these the maiden is the purest and highest because she is
unconcerned and untainted by the carnal. Thus being a nun is the
finest a woman can aspire to. The second best (and nearly as good) is
the faithful wife who uses her body for procreation (note that sex and
sexual desire for any other reason was considered a sin, one of the
seven deadly in fact). She is equal parts body and soul, but clean
because she uses her body only for that which is necessary for
survival. The whore is the lowest state because she is only concerned
with bodily pleasures and cares nothing for her soul.
I can quote you sources if you like.
>> - soul and body are one and both neccesary,
>> take one away and we are no longer human.
>
>In other words
>
>"Body and Soul but Truly One
>The human person, created in the image of God,
>is a being at once both corporeal and spiritual"
>
>From the "Catechism of the Catholic Church". p82.
I do not doubt this, but unfortunately theory and practise has had a
tendency to travel quite far apart as far as the church is concerned.
>> Being a physical and carnal
>> creature is a good thing, it's how we were created and how we were
>> supposed to be. Any attempt to remove our humanity by "purifying" or
>> "perfecting" us, be it by decree or by knife, religion or science, is
>> by default evil because it denies the beauty of what we are.
>>
>> I would be rather surprised if Pullman isn't a quite deeply spiritual
>> and believing man. He just doesn't like the christianity of the
>> church.
>
>Believing in what? In a vicious and depraved but fortunately
>impotent god?
No, this is what I mean by you seeing the windshield rather than the
road. The god in the book is the god as the church teaches that he is
- he is a _false_ god - not god as Pullman sees him, or, he may well
be completely atheistc, god as Pullman thinks he ought to be.
>In a meaningless and implacable universe that
>forces people to live in their own little islands and destroys or
>at best thwarts them when they try to reach out?
No, but in a universe where you should take care to reach out _where
you are_ because it's all you have. There is no sense in denying
yourself everything now, because there is no later where you will get
rewarded. Teaching people that they should do so, and will be
rewarded, is fooling them into an existance which is so much less than
it could be that Pullman sees it as evil.
>In grabbing
>as much experience as you can while alive, because when
>you're dead you're dead?
Yes. Simply put. What's wrong with living while you're alive?
> In a terrible world packed full of
>child-torturers and killers who don't even realsie that that's
>what they are?
The world is only terrible if you live it the way the "child-torturers
and killers" teach. Not if you live it like you should - full of love
and experiences.
>> If you happen to be deeply christian, I can understand how you would
>> feel strongly against this book. If you, like me, are vaguely spritual
>> and strongly anti-institution, then it's a very life-affirming ode to
>> love.
>
>We really will have to agree to differ.
Yes, we probably will.
Martin Gradwell
> In article <bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>, Martin Gradwell
> <mtgra...@btinternet.com> writes
> >Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >( [The torture of the witch in book 2 of the trilogy] is gratuitous.
> >The villains believe that their alethiometer can tell them anything they
> >want to know, so it doesn't matter if the witch tells them nothing).
>
> But the alethiometer is only as accurate as its user. My impression from
> this scene is that the aletheometrist of the party has to work slowly,
> checking his books for guidance. It's only Lyra who has the gift of
> reading the instrument intuitively.
The alethiometrist is slow, but accurate.
> Mrs Coulter is in a hurry.
.. presumably because her own daughter is involved, so that makes
it personal. But the other villains are probably wondering why there's
so much fuss about one small girl. Which is why I said it might have
been sufficient to take out Mrs. Coulter. Re-reading the passage,
though, I see that the other villains were fond enough of torture to
"jump the gun", to begin torturing the unfortunate witch before they
were supposed to. So the witch could not have expected any mercy
from them.
>
> I did hope that Serafina would kill Mrs Coulter, although even as I
> hoped, I realised it'd be a rather short story without her!
Yes. The tortured witch was doomed by narrative causality.
Because there was no other way the story could go without
becoming a short story. But that's another difference between
the NW episode and the HDM episode. Vimes did what
he did because he felt that it was necessary, not because he
wanted to prolong the story.
>
> >Instead, Serafina chooses to give "the gift of release" to a victim
> >who admittedly has broken legs and at least one broken finger,
> >but broken bones can heal.
> >
> I don't think it's just broken bones that the witch suffers. As in NW, I
> think more, and worse, torture is inferred. I read this piece as the
> witch having suffered more hurt than was visible.
Maybe, but the broken bones are all we are told about,
and the witch is still alive enough to be highly vocal. And it
is ostensibly a story for children. Call me old fashioned if you
like, but I wouldn't put unspeakable tortures, even when they
are only inferred and not actually spoken, in a children's book.
They get enough of that on the news.
..
>
> I'm not going to try to argue the theological case. Others are more
> qualified, and feel more strongly than I ever will. I don't have the
> knowledge, nor do I have the strength of faith in any god. I am
> disturbed by HDM, in the same way as parts of other books (including
> some of Pterry's) disturb me; because they challenge my view of the
> world, and they show differences between how I want the world (real or
> imagined) to work, and the way it actually does work.
I would dispute the notion that HDM presents us with
the way in which the world actually does work.
>
> >In book one Lord Asriel kills an
> >innocent young boy, deliberately, merely as a means of opening a
> >portal to another world i.e. out of curiosity, not out of necessity.
>
> My reading differs from you here. I haven't yet reached the end of Amber
> Spyglass, so I don't know how Asriel ends up,
I'll try to avoid any further spoilers about how it ends, then.
> but at this point I
> understand him as a man driven by an obsession to reach the other world,
> and thence to a battle with a God he sees as evil and oppressive.
He is obsessed with reaching the other world, yes. And he sees
the bridge as a way of breaking the power of the church. As he
says near the end of book 1, "Too many people will want to
[cross the bridge]. They won't be able to prevent them. This will
mean the end of the Church, Marisa, the end of the Magisterium,
the end of all those centuries of darkness!"
He also has plans for dealing with the dust, and other grandiose
ideas:
"You and I could take the universe to pieces and put it
together again, Marisa! We could find the source of dust
and stifle it forever!"
But that just makes him the archetypical demented scientist of
the "they say it can't be done, they say it shouldn't be done, but
I'll show them all!!!!!!" variety. At this stage he isn't talking about
taking on God Himself, but that's the maybe inevitable next stage
in the dementia. And indeed, early in book two, we hear that
"He's a-going to find the Authority and kill Him".
> He
> sees Roger as a sacrifice, a means to an end that justifies an
> "insignificant" death in order to achieve a great goal. I don't think
> he's right, but I don't think Roger's death is as gratuitous as you
> suggest.
All Asriel knows for certain is that there's a city beyond
the Aurora that he can see but not reach. And he thinks that
he can challenge the authority of the Church by making a
path to this city, but it's all a bit tenuous. How, precisely, is
opening up this route going to help him in his goals? And
his declared aim is actually not all that different from the
Church's. The church wants to destroy the source of the
dust, and so does he. Of course he could be lying, but ...
What makes his goal so great? He talks about ending
centuries of darkness. but the chief source of darkness
in the Church seems to be Marisa Coulter, and he wants
to ally himself with her. But she rejects him, presumably
because her power is so much identified with that of
the Church. Destroy the Church, and you destroy her.
Of course Roger's death is gratuitous. It's said to be in
aid of some great scheme, but the scheme is very tenuous
as well as being quite, quite mad. And it isn't even clear
why the sacrifice has to be of an innocent child, except
that it's traditional for mad warlocks to sacrifice innocent
children. Don't the adults in Asriel's world also have
daemons that can be severed to provide the requisite
power? Doesn't Asriel have any adult enemies that he
could sacrifice? But of couse that would be too tricky,
because adults can fight back. And a bully who chooses
an innocent victim because innocent victims can't fight
back, he is supposed to have a blueprint for a better
world? Never.
>
> >Of course Pullman can't depict that as anything other than an
> >act of villainy in book one - the readers have to be softened
> >up before Asriel can be transformed into a would-be deicidal
> >"hero", but by the end of book three he is so transformed.
>
> I think you're underestimating both Pullman's writing, and the
> intelligence of his readers in this assertion of a cynical "softening
> up". In the sense that Asriel commits this first murder as a step to a
> greater and more "significant" murder, then of course you're right. But
> I don't believe that it's as crass a process as Pullman writing the end
> of book one, thinking "If they swallow this, I can get them to swallow
> the rest".
Actually, I think that when Pullman finished book 1, books 2
and 3 existed only as the very vaguest of outlines. He did say
in advance that "the second volume is set in the universe we know"
when in fact most of it is not. Citagazze was probably originally
going to be a beach resort in our own world, where the adults
had been struck down by a mysterious plague; hence the distinct
similarity to our own world. And Asriel and Mrs Coulter were
both mad villains, but that was OK because we could recognise
them as such, and so could Lyra. And the idea of Lyra performing
any sort of service for either of them, now that she knew what
they both were like, was laughable. It just couldn't happen. But
then something happened to Philip Pullman, something dark and
terrible. And so the story had to be twisted.
There shouldn't be any debate about whether the sacrifice
of Roger was "justified" or not. It wasn't. Philip Pullman makes
this abundantly clear by making the victim Lyra's closest friend.
They grew up together, sharing adventures, and the readers
shared them too. And then Lyra battled her way across a
continent, risking her life again and again, to rescue him
He may have been "anonymous victim #1" to Asriel, but not
to the readers. And Lyra could have taken any of the other
children to Asriel The victim could have been unknown
both to Asriel and to Lyra, much like Tony Makarios, but
that victim would still have been a complex and vital human
being, with his own full life story. There's *no such thing* as
acceptable "collateral damage". Terry Pratchett is good at
making that clear. Philip Pullman made it clear in book one
of his trilogy. Then he changed, and an initially promising
trilogy became (in my opinion) a rant.
>
> >Will,
> >the hero of book two, is described as a murderer both by himself
> >and by Lyra, though the first killing he performs is both accidental
> >and in self defence (he pushes an assailant who trips over the
> >cat and falls down the stairs).
>
> Surely the important aspect of that first death is the way that Will
> sees himself.
No. The book isn't directed at Will, it is directed at the reader.
Will is a diligent, loving son with a strong sense of duty, who
would never consciously do anything wrong. Ergo, he has to
be described as a murderer. The bad has to be described as
good, and vice versa. It is the start of the softening-up process.
> In any court, he's guilty of accidentally killing a man
> while defending his home. In the UK that's manslaughter at worst. In
> Will's mind, he is a murderer. And it's his opinion of himself that the
> alethiometer reports to Lyra.
Maybe Will isn't old enough to know the difference between
murder and manslaughter, but he knows what happened, even
if he doesn't know the right word for it. And then we read,
after Lyra consults the alethiometer
"The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer.
When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. ...
A murderer was a worthy companion. She felt as
safe with him as she'd done with Iorek Byrnison
the armoured bear."
Now ask yourself how plausible this is, given that
Lyra has just barely escaped from recent run-ins
with several murderers, two of which happened
to be her parents. As a result of their murderous
activities she has lost her closest friend and several
other acquaintances, has seen terrible horrors,
and has almost been killed herself on several
occasions. If she feels she can trust murderers,
then why not trust Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter?
It's more softening up, and the softening continues
thick and fast from here on
> The second death, in the struggle for the subtle knife, is again caused
> by Will, but not inflicted directly by him. In both cases, the person
> who dies does so because they have allowed their greed to overwhelm
> them. In the first case, harassing Will and his mother and trying to
> steal Will's father's letters, in the second, by trying to steal the
> knife, when Will is the true bearer. Even then Will doesn't kill him,
> he's consumed by the spectres.
All true. And yet, Will is again described as a murderer,
because of what he does in the struggle for the knife.
Over and over, to reinforce the point: "You killed my
brother and you stole the knife! You murderers! You
made the spectres get him! You killed him and we'll
kill you!" and so on. More softening.
>
> >The church (every church) is
> >descibed as a gang of "child cutters": "they cut their sexual organs,
> >yes, both boys and girls - they cut them with knives so that they
> >shan't feel. That is what the church does, and every church is the
> >same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling."
> >(book 2, p52 in the Scholastic Press hardback edition).
>
> Setting aside the question of whether Pullman's overt atheist propaganda
> (in attributing the worst actions of some and specific churches and
> religions to all of them) is any more flawed than C.S. Lewis' Christian
> allegory in the Narnia series, or Tolkein's manufactured mythologism,
> this church is the church of Lyra's world, not ours. That world is a
> different place, where gypsies travel by water, not by road, where
> amberic energy, and not electricity flows, and witches fly.
Citegazza is a different world from ours - but it's one where
the bars and restaurants stock bottles of cola and cans of
baked beans.
And in Lyra's world, anbaric power *is* electric power,
only the name is different. And apart from the witches, the
daemons and the armoured bears, the differences are not
sufficient to establish that what we are reading is fantasy.
It's a *different* world, yes, but the differences are subtle.
There's nothing inherently fantastic about gipsy boatmen or
about Zeppelins, say. And the differences are explained
"scientifically" using the "many worlds hypothesis". The use
of "scientific" explanations, even nonsensical ones, is usually
considered sufficient to transform what would otherwise be
a fantasy into a work of science fiction.
About Christian allegory: Tolkein was Christian, and there
is said to be Christian message in LOTR, but you won't
find a single priest or church or obvious reference to religion
in it. That's how overt it is. You certainly won't find any
blanket condmnations of "wrong" religions or of atheism.
Narnia gets most overtly religious and apocalyptic in the
last book of the series, so let's just glance at that briefly.
There are two "false gods", Puzzle and Tash. Puzzle is a
donkey who is duped into dressing up in a lion skin and
pretending to be Aslan. And his punishment? He is revealed
as a beautiful donkey with such a soft grey coat that Jill and
Lucy can't resist putting their arms around his neck and
kissing his nose and stroking his ears.
Tash is a "real" false god, who is ultimately banished
by Aslan. But what of Tash's followers? There is one
that is faithful and honest, and Aslan tells him "I take to
me the services which thou hast done to him. For I
and he are of such different kinds that no service which
is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile
can be done to him".
Is Tash intended to represent Allah, or some Hindu
god, or what? You can read it in any number of ways,
because Lewis is a bit more subtle and restrained than
Pullman. I see Tash as mammon, or as the sort of god
followed by people who claim to be Christian while
engaging in pre-emptive war. But I could be wrong.
My point is that there's no overt blanket condemnation
of recogisable segments of society - races or religions
or classes or whatever.
>
> Isn't the idea of fantasy to take the known and twist it, sometimes by
> 180 degrees?
Yes, but while keeping it clear in the reader's mind
that it *is* fantasy.
..
> >Vimes's help hardly made any difference, and Will's
> >inaction hardly made any difference.
> >
>
> I haven't got this far yet, so can't comment in detail. Dragging
> ourselves back to the vaguely relevant, I think Vimes' action _does_
> make a difference. Your comparison (not mine, because I haven't got to
> this bit yet!) between his offering help to the torture victims, and
> Will apparently failing to kill The Authority seems to me (on limited
> knowledge) to be a false one. The Cable Street victims were innocent
> (insofar as anyone is innocent when, as Vimes knows, everyone's guilty
> of something), in Pullman's terms, the Authority is the torturer,
> fallen.
But in Cable street there is a torturer, fallen. And when young
Vimes seems inclined to "help" the torturer into the next world,
old Vimes puts him straight.
"You don't bash a man's brains out when he's tied to a char!"
- "He did!"
"And you don't. That's because you're not him".
And when Vimes later sets fire to the place and only then
remembers about the tied-up torturer, he goes into the
burning building on a rescue mission, at considerable risk
to himself. A mission to rescue a torturer, that others
would probably be happy to abandon. Vimes never
kills gratuitously.
I can't make further comparisons between the two episodes
without maybe spoiling HDM for you. But there is another
episode in HDM, that you are probably past already.
Will, despite being repeatedly branded a murderer, is
acually almost incapable of killing. He can't even bring himself
to kill a horribly injured toad on the way to the country of the
dead. "If we killed it, we'd be taking it with us" said Will.
"It wants to stay here. I've killed enough living things. Even
a filthy stagnant pool might be better than being dead."
"But if it's in pain" said Tialys?
"If it could tell us, we'd know. But since it can't, I'm not
going to kill it".
Now that is a speech that I imagine Will would deliver to
Vimes, if they were to meet. And there is some merit in it.
Vimes is certainly capable of killing, but he has strict rules.
Those rules allow him to do what Will would not do for
the toad, but they do not allow him to kill torturers.
..
> >I am not at all surprised that the trilogy did well in the
> >Big Read. It is a tale for our times, perfectly suited for
> >an age and culture which believes in the merits of pre-
> >emptive war.
>
> It's also a disturbing and thought provoking read. Surely, if it were
> not at least reasonably well-written, it would not provoke such debate.
I won't dispute that books one and two are well written,
though there's a bit too much polemic, and unpleasant polemic
at that, in book two. The polemic takes over in book three,
in my opinion.
..
> If you worked where I do, you'd know that "pushing" literature at
> children has about the same effect as trying to herd cats! If children
> read it (and, I grant you, it's a difficult read) they read it on their
> own terms. Marketing and peer pressure might account for book one being
> read, but after that, it's down to whether they enjoy it, or get
> something out of it.
I suspect there's a lot of collections where book one is
well thumbed, book two less so, and book three hardly
at all. Still, people who were gripped by the early part
of the adventure might be interested enough in how
Lyra and Will end up to wade through almost anything
to find out.
>
> >I can't help thinking that we might have fewer warped
> >children if such dark materials were reserved for adults
> >who are equipped with a healthy dose of scepticism,
> >and aren't likely to accept claims as true merely because
> >they're embedded in an initially gripping (but later
> >faltering) story.
> >
>
> Oh dear, now you're beginning to make me nervous. To follow this line of
> argument to its logical conclusion, should not any books that change or
> challenge thinking be reserved for those "equipped" to read them?
Yes indeed. Except that nobody is qualified to decide what
any adult is equipped or not equipped to read. I am talking
about protecting minors, and *only* about that.
> So
> nothing for children except approved material, bland and
> unexceptionable. And perhaps some test for adults, to check they have
> reached the required ability to be able to healthily question and reject
> the dangerous, the uncomfortable, the...heretical?
No. I consider myself to be less censorious than most.
You don't often see Mein Kampf, say, or the Protocols
of the Elders of Zion, in a public library. There's a lot
of people who wouldn't allow them. I *would*, but I wouldn't
put them in the children's section. And I wouldn't put top shelf
magazines in the children's section. Does that make me a
villain? And I'd allow children to read "difficult" material,
even pretty vile stuff, if there was some reason for them doing
so, just not in an uncontrolled way. I'd want to be sure that a
child reading the Protocols, say, was acquainted with the
concepts of "forgery", "defamation" and "anti-Semitism",
and wasn't likely to take the book at face value.
> Anyway, why would children believe one part (the church and God are
> evil) as true, when they know that there are no talking bears, witches
> on cloud pine branches, etc.?
Childhood is a process of learning what is real and what is not.
You don't come pre-equipped with a built in alethiometer.
After watching Jurassic park you might believe that dinosaurs
are real, until someone puts you straight. Then you know there's
no such thing as giant reptiles, until you see a crocodile. And
so on. The refinement of knowledge never stops. In your earliest
years there are huge gaps in your knowledge, and if your
learning wasn't controlled then anyone could fill them with
anything. As indeed they do, via the television.
>It's also such a demanding read that I
> would think that anyone not able to think for themselves about the
> issues in the book would lack the ability to get beyond page 4 of the
> first part.
In the first four pages, a girl hides behind a chair,eavesdrops
on a brief conversation, and sees a powder being placed into
a drink, which she later infers to be a poison intended for
Lord Asriel. Nothing too taxing, apart from the initially
puzzling references to daemons, and her conversation with
her own daemon. The daemon actually makes the text
easier to read, by transforming what would otherwise be
an internal monologue into a conversation. and we do
eventually find out the reason for the attempted poisoning,
but only at the end of the book.
Book three is another matter entirely, and even that starts
off relatively simply.
>
> I think you're blurring an objection to the book on grounds of faith -
> which is your own and nobody should be able to gainsay it, and literary
> criticism. You seem to be arguing that it's an evil book, and also that
> it's a bad book, in the sense of badly written. If it's an evil book,
> badly written, then it'll die a natural death. The novelty will wear off
> and any evil it does will be transitory.
It will wear off. And the evil will be transitory, but the same
is true of any evil. Just because evil is transitory, that doesn't
mean it shouldn't be opposed.
I didn't intend to get so deeply into HDM here. I suppose
that there's a Pullman or HDM newsgroup somewhere, but
it wouldn't be right for me to go there and slag off HDM
any more than it is right to come here and slag off Pratchett.
That would be trolling. So that's why I've done it here.
That's my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking to it, but I'll
quite understand if the general feeling is that we've had
enough HDM fort the time being.
Stacie Hanes
<snip a whole BUNCH of stuff>
>> We really will have to agree to differ.
>
> Yes, we probably will.
I haven't read the series, but now I'm bloody well going to read it as soon
as possible. I wanted so much to chime in, because it sounds just my thing.
I have a feeling which side I'd be on, since I feel that if the god of the
Old Testament *does* exist, I want nothing to do with him. Institutionalized
religion is appalling.
--
Stacie, fourth swordswoman of the afpocalypse.
"If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible
warning." Catherine Aird, _His Burial Too_
"swordswomen of the afpocalypse" copyright Jon of afp, 2004.
Kegs
> "Stephen Taylor" <ste...@hedgehogco.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:tMxDnhG$4sHA...@hedgehogco.demon.co.uk...
>> Oh dear, now you're beginning to make me nervous. To follow this line of
>> argument to its logical conclusion, should not any books that change or
>> challenge thinking be reserved for those "equipped" to read them?
>
> Yes indeed. Except that nobody is qualified to decide what
> any adult is equipped or not equipped to read. I am talking
> about protecting minors, and *only* about that.
Protecting Minors from what, exactly? Being brainwashed by an
internally inconsistent mass irrationality?
Personally I would stick every kid in a room with HDM, and not
let them out until they had read all three. Partly because I
think that they are good books, as well as being good childrens
books (I am going to have to reread them now), but also because
of their stance on organised religion.
>> So
>> nothing for children except approved material, bland and
>> unexceptionable. And perhaps some test for adults, to check they have
>> reached the required ability to be able to healthily question and reject
>> the dangerous, the uncomfortable, the...heretical?
>
> No. I consider myself to be less censorious than most.
> You don't often see Mein Kampf, say, or the Protocols
> of the Elders of Zion, in a public library. There's a lot
> of people who wouldn't allow them. I *would*, but I wouldn't
> put them in the children's section. And I wouldn't put top shelf
> magazines in the children's section. Does that make me a
> villain? And I'd allow children to read "difficult" material,
> even pretty vile stuff, if there was some reason for them doing
> so, just not in an uncontrolled way. I'd want to be sure that a
> child reading the Protocols, say, was acquainted with the
> concepts of "forgery", "defamation" and "anti-Semitism",
> and wasn't likely to take the book at face value.
That is coming dangerously close to Godwinating the thread ;)
You are really equating HDM with two of the more vile manifestos
of hate produced in the last century?
>> Anyway, why would children believe one part (the church and God are
>> evil) as true, when they know that there are no talking bears, witches
>> on cloud pine branches, etc.?
>
> Childhood is a process of learning what is real and what is not.
> You don't come pre-equipped with a built in alethiometer.
> After watching Jurassic park you might believe that dinosaurs
> are real, until someone puts you straight. Then you know there's
> no such thing as giant reptiles, until you see a crocodile. And
> so on. The refinement of knowledge never stops. In your earliest
> years there are huge gaps in your knowledge, and if your
> learning wasn't controlled then anyone could fill them with
> anything. As indeed they do, via the television.
Yeah, or religious cant and dogma, which is just as harmful, IMO.
"Give me a child until he is seven and he will be ours for the rest of
his life" - some Jesuit[1]
>> I think you're blurring an objection to the book on grounds of faith -
>> which is your own and nobody should be able to gainsay it, and literary
>> criticism. You seem to be arguing that it's an evil book, and also that
>> it's a bad book, in the sense of badly written. If it's an evil book,
>> badly written, then it'll die a natural death. The novelty will wear off
>> and any evil it does will be transitory.
>
> It will wear off. And the evil will be transitory, but the same
> is true of any evil. Just because evil is transitory, that doesn't
> mean it shouldn't be opposed.
And the evil that organised religions do shouldn't be opposed
either? Compared to anything that HDM bring about, if you
acceept (which I obviously don't) that they are evil, can
they do as much harm as organised, proselytising religion
has done over the years? Shouldn't someone oppose organised
religion in a similar way?
People would be up in arms if someone tried to ban children reading
the old testament, with all its incest, rape, intolerance and murder,
and that is a book that is presented as non-fiction. This book is
aimed at older children, who aren't as stupid as you seem to
think that they are, though I would say that they aren't suitable
for a child under the age of 10 or 11, as they are rather dark.
[1] Francis something, I think
--
James jamesk[at]homeric[dot]co[dot]uk
All true wisdom is found on T-shirts and taglines.
Crowfoot
"Stacie Hanes" <esmer...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Graycat wrote:
>
> <snip a whole BUNCH of stuff>
>
> >> We really will have to agree to differ.
> >
> > Yes, we probably will.
>
> I haven't read the series, but now I'm bloody well going to read it as
> soon
> as possible. I wanted so much to chime in, because it sounds just my
> thing.
>
> I have a feeling which side I'd be on, since I feel that if the god of
> the Old Testament *does* exist, I want nothing to do with him.
> Institutionalized religion is appalling.
My feeling too; and that goes for every blasted one of them, since
institutionalization seems to inevitably go bad. An institution is,
in the end, a heirarchy organized for the benefit of its top tier,
because power freaks use any insitutional structure to scramble to a
position from which they can then oppress everyone else with their
"authority". How good and humane the initial religion was seems
not to matter much: the structure itself is a ladder to power, and
for the power-hungry that's irresistable; they find ways to climb,
while kicking the competition in the teeth. See (to return OT)
Vorbis in SG.
The way the power-hungry operate is to enforce the most narrow-
minded, fundamentalist version of an institutionalized religion,
because that version maximizes their own control over the behavior
and thoughts of those below them. It doesn't matter whether you're
talking about Popes and Cardinals, Mullahs, Rabbis, or Pastors. It
takes a rare breed of religious devotee to resist, to press openly
for a return to the heart of the religion as opposed to its
institutionalized rules and regulations. Those that do tend to get
demoted, shut up, buried in unattractive and distant posts, or just
plain killed by the other kind, to stop them revealing the leadership's
corrupt nature just by providing the contrast of true, honest,
heartfelt spirituality: Brutha vs. Vorbis.
C.
--
Crow
Crowfoot
<roy.OMITTH...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> Bravo Martin! You have expressed exactly my own feeling about HDM and in
> a
> far more cogent and clearly reasoned form than I ever could.
>
> In matters of faith I am humanist and a-gnostic, but know well enough the
> teachings of Christ and how they have been corrupted over the years by
> deluded or self-seeking people, and how that corruption became the
> established church. But that does not make Pullman's HDM worldview in any
> way acceptable to me, and I recognise the good things that have been done
> as well as the repellant.
>
> What I don't understand is how the religious zealots who see evil in
> Harry
> Potter and try to ban it don't make a much bigger fuss over HDM, which as
> far as I can see promotes every heresy that's ever been!
HDM is too subtle for them. These are not sharp people, by and large.
One of the things that motivates them is fear and hatred of ideas that
they are simply too slow to understand, to judge by the ignorant ranting
on hate radio and by the letter columns in the papers.
C.
--
Crow
Daibhid Ceannaideach
>Date: 04/02/04 23:33 GMT Standard Time
>After watching Jurassic park you might believe that dinosaurs
>are real, until someone puts you straight.
Um, I really, *really* hope you mean "you might believe there are still
*living* dinosaurs".
--
Dave
The Official Absentee of EU Skiffeysoc
http://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/sesoc
Joe: What do you think *you* can do?
The Doctor: Resist them. Surprise them. Oh, and possibly perform a few show
tunes.
-Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka
Pies
>>From: "Martin Gradwell" mtgra...@btinternet.com
>>Date: 04/02/04 23:33 GMT Standard Time
>
>
>>After watching Jurassic park you might believe that dinosaurs
>>are real, until someone puts you straight.
>
>
> Um, I really, *really* hope you mean "you might believe there are still
> *living* dinosaurs".
YOMANK.
I really should read Philip Pullman now... anyone who causes this much
(off-topic ;-) debate can't be all bad...
I watched Dogma (the Kevin Smith film, not the Danish art movement) last
night, and was reminded of certain aspects of this thread... Or is that
just me... if so, IGMC...
Andy
--
Andy Ribbans
"What are you going to do, hit me with that... fish?"
Remove ERROR to reply
weirdwolf
news:20040205062706...@mb-m15.aol.com:
>>From: "Martin Gradwell" mtgra...@btinternet.com
>>Date: 04/02/04 23:33 GMT Standard Time
>
>>After watching Jurassic park you might believe that dinosaurs
>>are real, until someone puts you straight.
>
> Um, I really, *really* hope you mean "you might believe there are still
> *living* dinosaurs".
Ted looks out of a window and sees several descendents of dinosaurs
hopping about going tweettweet in his garden.
Of course this leads nicely into a conversation about the god of
evolution but hey ho at least it's on topic.
Graycat
<mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Citegazza is a different world from ours - but it's one where
>the bars and restaurants stock bottles of cola and cans of
>baked beans.
>
>And in Lyra's world, anbaric power *is* electric power,
>only the name is different. And apart from the witches, the
>daemons and the armoured bears, the differences are not
>sufficient to establish that what we are reading is fantasy.
Maybe so, but there also happens to be witches, daemons and armoured
bears. I'd say it's pretty darn clear that HDM is fantasy. When I was
9 or so I read The Dark is Rising sequence, a bunch of fantasy books
entirely set in our world. Yet, in some mysterious fashion, I managed
to realise that it was all fantasy - people don't have to be blue with
arms sticking out of their ears for children to understand that
something isn't reality.
>It's a *different* world, yes, but the differences are subtle.
>There's nothing inherently fantastic about gipsy boatmen or
>about Zeppelins, say.
So? We don't have them, hence it's a work of fantasy.
>And the differences are explained
>"scientifically" using the "many worlds hypothesis". The use
>of "scientific" explanations, even nonsensical ones, is usually
>considered sufficient to transform what would otherwise be
>a fantasy into a work of science fiction.
And science fiction is an evil genre? Or is it that scifi, unlike
fantasy, is documentary? Or are you just being a pedant? In short,
what's the point of this objection?
>> Isn't the idea of fantasy to take the known and twist it, sometimes by
>> 180 degrees?
>
>Yes, but while keeping it clear in the reader's mind
>that it *is* fantasy.
Like I just said, it _is_ clear that it is fantasy.
The Discworld is one world of many in the multiverse, somewhere out
there is this world. That's as good as stated n the DW books. The
people on the discworld are named Fred and Samuel, live in a city much
like London or New York, work as policemen and pay for things with
dollars. They read the newspaper and drink coffe. You know, if you
changed the names a bit and took away the wizards and dragons, it
could be our world. No? Or, is it scifi? I mean, there is the
multiverse and "many worlds" explanation.
I don't think your objections above hold water.
Martin Gradwell
"Rgemini" <roy.OMITTH...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:bvrdhc$us9od$1...@ID-203370.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Bravo Martin! You have expressed exactly my own feeling about HDM and in
a
> far more cogent and clearly reasoned form than I ever could.
Thanks for that endorsement.
..
> What I don't understand is how the religious zealots who see evil in Harry
> Potter and try to ban it don't make a much bigger fuss over HDM, which as
> far as I can see promotes every heresy that's ever been!
I think it's because they take a look at HDM and realise that
Harry Potter isn't evil at all, and they curl up in embarassment
in contemplation of their error. They then become reluctant to
have a go at any book, because "once bitten, twice shy".
Maybe.
>
> On a different tack, I was given HDM for christmas and read the entire
> trilogy in one, seven-hour sitting. OK I finished at 3am and wasn't up to
> much next day, but I wanted to see how it all ended and you know how it is
Yes. I didn't so much want to know how it ended, as want to know
if the things really were going to happen that were being telegraphed.
And so I read it all out of order, unusual for me. One of the first
chapters I read in book 3 was "Authority's end". So it took me a
bit longer than 7 hours, because afterwards I had to re-read in the
right order..
> ...
>
> Rgemini
Martin.
Craig A. Finseth
Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>"Rgemini" <roy.OMITTH...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
>news:bvrdhc$us9od$1...@ID-203370.news.uni-berlin.de...
>> What I don't understand is how the religious zealots who see evil in Harry
>> Potter and try to ban it don't make a much bigger fuss over HDM, which as
>> far as I can see promotes every heresy that's ever been!
>
>I think it's because they take a look at HDM and realise that
>Harry Potter isn't evil at all, and they curl up in embarassment
>in contemplation of their error. They then become reluctant to
>have a go at any book, because "once bitten, twice shy".
>Maybe.
Keep in mind that most of the people who have "claimed to see evil in
Harry Potter" have never actually _read_ any of the books. What
usually happens is that a friend tells them that there is evil in the
books and points out the word "witch" or "magic" on one of the pages.
As far as HDM, IMHO it's mainly because the book has never reached
their radar.
Craig
Martin Gradwell
"Mengmeng Zhang" <meng...@math.utexas.edu> wrote in message
news:bvrmud$m0k$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > To Pullman, Christian, jew, muslim or whatever, it's all the same,
> > it's all "the Church", and all to be tarred with the same brush.
> > Only atheism, devil-worship and maybe wicca are exempt.
>
> Ok, I too am not terribly fond of the unsubtleness of HDM as compared to
> for example SG, but I certainly don't hate the trilogy like you seem to.
> But this statement of yours just has me going WTF?! Atheism I can see,
> Wicca I can see. But devil-worship? You can't really worship the devil
> if you don't think he exists.
But I'm not saying that Pullman might be a devil-worshipper,
only that he wouldn't criticise devil worshippers. And I'm fairly
sure that he wouldn't, for reasons that I go into below.
>
> Or am I one of those hapless people being tricked by the devil into
> doing his work by not embracing Christ? Sorry for the straw man, but
> there's _nothing_ in HDM to suggest approval of "devil-worship". Geez.
Nothing? Have you not heard or read anywhere that HDM is
based very firmly on "Paradise Lost" by John Milton?
In that, the devil, having been cast out of heaven into the fiery
pit, begins planning his comeback. He builds a new realm, Hell,
with a new capital, Pandaemonium. There he establishes a
council, and they debate what to do next. Should they try to
storm heaven and unthrone God? In the end the decide that
such an action would be too dangerous, but they have learned
that there is a new creature, Man, which might provide some
useful opportunities if subverted. So Satan makes his way,
alone, out into the world and he manages to throw a spanner
into the works at the Garden of Eden.
Sounds familiar? There are actually many more parallels
between HDM and Paradise Lost than I have hinted at.
Consider, for instance, the significance of everyone having
a personal daemon, in the light of the fact that Satan's
capital is called Pandaemonium.
HDM is the rematch. Lord Asriel *is* Satan, and this
time he won't be satisfied with any partial victory.
This time there'll be a fall in the Garden of Eden, the
same as the first time, but this time there'll be a fall in
Heaven too. And at the end everyone will think that
Asriel died in some heroic struggle, and that there
never was any such thing as the devil. It won't occur
to anybody that daemons are actually immortal, that
they don't die when they disappear. Not until book
four, anyway, when presumably all will be revealed ;-)
Martin Gradwell
"weirdwolf" <weirdwo...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9485D8E3E2907iy...@130.133.1.4...
> Mengmeng Zhang <meng...@math.utexas.edu> wrote in news:bvrmud$m0k$1
> @geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
>
> > Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >> To Pullman, Christian, jew, muslim or whatever, it's all the same,
> >> it's all "the Church", and all to be tarred with the same brush.
> >> Only atheism, devil-worship and maybe wicca are exempt.
> > there's _nothing_ in HDM to suggest approval of "devil-worship". Geez.
> > (no pun intended)
> Even the wiccan aspect is strained to say the least, just because it
> says witch doesn't mean to say that it's wicca.
Of couse the wiccan aspect is strained. That's why I put a
"maybe" in front of the wicca, but not in front of the atheism
and devil-worship. I don't think Pullman would criticise
wicca, but I don't know for certain because I can't read
his mind. But I can read his mind about atheism and devil
worship, because he telegraphs it all throughout his text.
And practically every page of it suggests approval of
devil worship - you really have to be blind not to see it.
And you're right about the witches in HDM being nothing
to do with wicca. They're only in there because they're
mentioned in Paradise Lost.
[Of the night-hag]: called
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon
Eclipses at their charms.
See the parallels? Does the night-hag remind
you of anyone in particular?
> Wicca is a modern "religion" not more than what 100 years old.
> Ted
Maybe. But my understanding is that at least some
practitioners of it believe it to be a continuation of
the old tradition of witchcraft.And if that is so, I
wouldn't presume to contradict them. How can I
claim to know more about their religion than they
do themselves, when I know next to nothing
about it?
Craig A. Finseth
Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>"Mengmeng Zhang" <meng...@math.utexas.edu> wrote in message
>news:bvrmud$m0k$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
>> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> Ok, I too am not terribly fond of the unsubtleness of HDM as compared to
>> for example SG, but I certainly don't hate the trilogy like you seem to.
>> But this statement of yours just has me going WTF?! Atheism I can see,
>> Wicca I can see. But devil-worship? You can't really worship the devil
>> if you don't think he exists.
>But I'm not saying that Pullman might be a devil-worshipper,
>only that he wouldn't criticise devil worshippers. And I'm fairly
>sure that he wouldn't, for reasons that I go into below.
It is my understanding that devil-worshippers are an offshoot of whatever
religions that believe in the devil.
So, if you're down on the church as an institution, you'd almost certainly
have to be down on their devil-worshipping portion.
...
>Nothing? Have you not heard or read anywhere that HDM is
>based very firmly on "Paradise Lost" by John Milton?
...
I think you're really starting to reach.
I'm quite sure that there are elements of "Paradise Lost" in HDM.
There are probably also elements of "Lord of the Rings," various
Shakespeare plays, and assorted other works.
But, granting your premise we have the following:
1) HDM is "based very firmly" on "Paradise Lost."
2) HDM is evil.
One would therefore conclude that:
3) "Paradise Lost" is evil.
But it's not generally considered as such. Hence, either (1) or (2)
(or both) are wrong.
Look. HDM is a story. IMHO, a very fine story. IY(our)HO, it's not.
I'm sure that there are lots of stories that you think are fine and I
think are terrible.
I wouldn't base my life plan on HDM, nor would I encourage my children
to do so. But so what? I wouldn't base my life plan on "Lord of the
Rings" or even a Nancy Drew mystery, so what?
As far a comparing HDM with the Discworld, I can't even imagine
trying. It's like comparing a fine Swiss watch to a fur coat: both
are excellent in their own way, but they are so far apart from each
other that the concept of comparing them doesn't even make sense.
Craig
weirdwolf
@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk:
>
> "weirdwolf" <weirdwo...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9485D8E3E2907iy...@130.133.1.4...
>> Mengmeng Zhang <meng...@math.utexas.edu> wrote in news:bvrmud$m0k$1
>> @geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
>>
>> > Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > [snip]
>> >
>> >> To Pullman, Christian, jew, muslim or whatever, it's all the same,
>> >> it's all "the Church", and all to be tarred with the same brush.
>> >> Only atheism, devil-worship and maybe wicca are exempt.
> ...
>> > there's _nothing_ in HDM to suggest approval of "devil-worship". Geez.
>> > (no pun intended)
>> Even the wiccan aspect is strained to say the least, just because it
>> says witch doesn't mean to say that it's wicca.
>
> Of couse the wiccan aspect is strained. That's why I put a
> "maybe" in front of the wicca, but not in front of the atheism
> and devil-worship. I don't think Pullman would criticise
> wicca, but I don't know for certain because I can't read
> his mind. But I can read his mind about atheism and devil
> worship, because he telegraphs it all throughout his text.
> And practically every page of it suggests approval of
> devil worship - you really have to be blind not to see it.
That's absolute tosh, nobody can read minds, you are basing your
conjecture on your own experiences and prejudices as we all do.
As an atheist Pullman would not believe in any form of worship, be it
devil worship,wicca or that of the cult of the gardening program which
seems to be raging throught the country
If he is against one religious group he would be against all religious
groups.
> And you're right about the witches in HDM being nothing
> to do with wicca. They're only in there because they're
> mentioned in Paradise Lost.
>
> [Of the night-hag]: called
> In secret, riding through the air she comes,
> Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
> With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon
> Eclipses at their charms.
>
> See the parallels? Does the night-hag remind
> you of anyone in particular?
yup, but they're not there to illustrate wicca, devil worship,(which by the
way, contrary to the belief of many christian groups isn't a part of
wicca,) but as way of expanding the story line.
Witches are a common belief all over the world, they are even included in
the works of Tolkien and Lewis. The power of witchcraft in many societies
isn't just as a source of evil but also as a way of deflecting or
mitigating the problems that life brings.
They are there as an element in the story which would advance the plot and
be a recognisable way of doing it within the prescientific semimystical
world in which Lyra lives.
You may as well say that Pullman believes that we should all be
worshipping Zeus and the olympians because of the presence of harpies.
>> Wicca is a modern "religion" not more than what 100 years old.
>
> Maybe.
No maybe about it. Gardner "invented" his religion from a mix of things
like free masonary, rosacrucian and hindu beliefs amongst other influences.
>But my understanding is that at least some
> practitioners of it believe it to be a continuation of
> the old tradition of witchcraft.And if that is so, I
> wouldn't presume to contradict them. How can I
> claim to know more about their religion than they
> do themselves, when I know next to nothing
> about it?
Yep, and some people believe that the bible is the absolute truth handed
down by god and not subject to translation errors, blatant fraud or the
vagaries of church meetings. This however is obviously not true.
That big old box infront of you packed with silicon is great for finding
out about stuff, try it that modern internet things quite amazing, never as
good as a well turned book with a nice leather cover and nicely turned
spine though >;-Þ
Mike Stevens
> But I'm not saying that Pullman might be a devil-worshipper,
> only that he wouldn't criticise devil worshippers.
I feel that Pullman would probably be very critical of worshippers of
*anything*.
> Nothing? Have you not heard or read anywhere that HDM is
> based very firmly on "Paradise Lost" by John Milton?
It's a new theory to me, but ties in with my own strong feeling (see my
earlier postings) that HDM is very redolent of the influence of William
Blake. Blake was a great enthusiast for Milton, and one of his major
epic works was about Milton.
But to my reading, Pullman puts more of a Blakeian than a Miltonian spin
on the story.
Helgi Briem
<mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Of couse the wiccan aspect is strained. That's why I put a
>"maybe" in front of the wicca, but not in front of the atheism
>and devil-worship. I don't think Pullman would criticise
>wicca, but I don't know for certain because I can't read
>his mind. But I can read his mind about atheism and devil
>worship, because he telegraphs it all throughout his text.
>And practically every page of it suggests approval of
>devil worship - you really have to be blind not to see it.
I think that in some ways your analysis makes sense
although I do not agree with it is.
In this particular issue, I think you are completely
and absolutely wrong. Pullman would not, in any way,
shape or form, approve of or endores devil worship.
The very idea is ludicrous.
Martin Gradwell
> In article <bvu0de$nrp$1...@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> > Have you not heard or read anywhere that HDM is
> >based very firmly on "Paradise Lost" by John Milton?
> ...
>
> I think you're really starting to reach.
Not at all. Actually "based very firmly" is an understatement.
HDM is in many ways a rewrite of Paradise Lost. Even the
title "His Dark Materials" is a quote from Paradise Lost.
> I'm quite sure that there are elements of "Paradise Lost" in HDM.
> There are probably also elements of "Lord of the Rings," various
> Shakespeare plays, and assorted other works.
No there aren't, unless you're really reaching. There's a
dagger in Macbeth and there's a dagger in HDM. And that's
as far as that particular comparison goes. Similarly with any
other "parallel" that you might drag up. I think you're confusing
Pratchett, who is eclectic, with Pullman, who isn't.
>
> But, granting your premise we have the following:
>
> 1) HDM is "based very firmly" on "Paradise Lost."
>
> 2) HDM is evil.
>
> One would therefore conclude that:
>
> 3) "Paradise Lost" is evil.
And some may well have reached that conclusion, but
it is false. In Paradise Lost, you have Satan wanting to
storm heaven and depose God, and destroy the Kingdom
of God, just as Asriel does in HDM. Now Milton was a
staunch republican. He didn't believe in (earthly) kingdoms.
And so, unconsciously, he gives Satan all the best lines
in the poem. It is easy to read PL and to suppose that
Milton agrees with all the lines he is putting into Satan's
mouth; that he is secretly a follower of Satan. But William
Blake, for one, would have none of that.
"Thus Fools quote Shakespeare
The Above is Theseus's opinion Not Shakespeares You might as well
quote Satans blasphemies from Milton & give them as Miltons
Opinions "
- Blake, in an annotation of Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell".
And that is what Pullman does. He "quotes Satans blasphemies
from Milton", but he does so approvingly; and there's nothing
unconscious about that approval.
..
> I wouldn't base my life plan on HDM, nor would I encourage my children
> to do so. But so what? I wouldn't base my life plan on "Lord of the
> Rings" or even a Nancy Drew mystery, so what?
Those other books aren't written with the intention of getting
you or anyone else to base your life plan on them.
A more apt comparison would be with the Chronicles of
Narnia, and that is indeed one of the few sources from which
Pullman draws, apart from Paradise Lost. But Pullman doesn't
just draw from these other sources, he also turns them round
180 degrees. So in Narnia we have the "dwarfs who refuse to
be taken in" who believe that they are in a dank dark hole,
when really they are in a wide open sunny place with trees
and flowers. And in HDM you have the churchman who
believes that he is in a paradise "overflowing with milk and
honey and resounding with the sweet hymns of the angels"
when really he is in a dank dark hole.
>
> As far a comparing HDM with the Discworld, I can't even imagine
> trying. It's like comparing a fine Swiss watch to a fur coat: both
> are excellent in their own way, but they are so far apart from each
> other that the concept of comparing them doesn't even make sense.
But both are ostensibly series of fantasy books, aimed
at least partly at children (and I would recommend the whole
of the Discworld series to children, not just those books
which are explicitly aimed at them). And the BBC's recent
beauty contest was all about comparing HDM with Discworld,
and with Tolstoy and Austen and Tolkein... Obviously there
are people other than myself who think it can be done.
I would be surprised if Mr. Pratchett hasn't had a good look
at HDM himself, if only to try and work out how it ended up
higher than him in the BBC's list. They are competing in the
same market. But I believe that Terry couldn't emulate HDM,
and I for one wouldn't want to see him try. The difference
between HDM and discworld is more than one of just style.
I agree, it's like comparing a watch with a fur coat. But I
would say Pullman's watch only tells the correct time twice
a day. And Pullman advocates can argue that at least that's
twice more than the fur coat, but I won't be convinced.
>
> Craig
Martin
Martin Gradwell
> >And in Lyra's world, anbaric power *is* electric power,
> >only the name is different. And apart from the witches, the
> >daemons and the armoured bears, the differences are not
> >sufficient to establish that what we are reading is fantasy.
>
> Maybe so, but there also happens to be witches, daemons and armoured
> bears. I'd say it's pretty darn clear that HDM is fantasy.
I could argue the point further, but I agree HDM is fantasy,
and most children will realise that. But it is an allegorical fantasy,
something like the Chronicles of Narnia. It isn't intended to
while away a few hours pleasantly, it is intended to put across
a message which is to be taken to heart. And the message
is the exact opposite of the message hidden in the Chronicles
of Narnai.
..
> >And the differences are explained
> >"scientifically" using the "many worlds hypothesis". The use
> >of "scientific" explanations, even nonsensical ones, is usually
> >considered sufficient to transform what would otherwise be
> >a fantasy into a work of science fiction.
>
> And science fiction is an evil genre? Or is it that scifi, unlike
> fantasy, is documentary? Or are you just being a pedant? In short,
> what's the point of this objection?
Sci fi is not an evil genre, nor is it documentary. But it is
about things which (supposedly) can happen. Pullman is
trying to convince his readers that his universe, and even
the most fantastic element of it, is something which could
be real.
The flying witches are the most obvious fantasy element
in HDM, at least until we get thoroughly enmeshed in the
"Kingdom of Heaven" stuff. But they don't put HDM into
the same category as Pratchett. For a start, they aren't
human. There are clues in the way they live for thousands
of years, and in the way they don't have to wrap up
against the cold in their extreme northern latitude. And
the leader of one clan is called "Serafina". Female Seraph.
Maybe they are the offspring of humans and fallen angels.
Whatever they are, they belong firmly to the world of
Milton. They are in HDM because they are in Milton.
...
> The Discworld is one world of many in the multiverse, somewhere out
> there is this world. That's as good as stated n the DW books. The
> people on the discworld are named Fred and Samuel, live in a city much
> like London or New York, work as policemen and pay for things with
> dollars. They read the newspaper and drink coffe. You know, if you
> changed the names a bit and took away the wizards and dragons, it
> could be our world. No?
No. The Discworld began as a light-hearted comic reflection
on our world. It wouldn't have worked if it had been, say, a
light-hearted comic reflection on some other world that we
know nothing about. So we have people with familiar names
like Samuel, but no biblical book of Samuel. So there has to
be some other origin for the name Samuel in the Discworld,
which we never delve into because it would be too much work
coming up with spurious explanations for all these coincidences,
and it would detract from the comedy. All of the "familiar"
aspects of the discworld have different origins from our
counterparts. The newspaper was developed by William de
Worde, just recently. Tallow comes from fat mines in the
fat-rich country of Uberwald. And so on. Discworld started
off different from our world, and is slowly converging on it.
By contrast, the worlds of HDM are the same as our world,
until there is a split in the "trousers of time". Even then the
worlds seem to continue developing in parallel, hardly
diverging at all. So, for instance, the world of Citegazza
seems indistinguishable from ours apart from the presence
of Spectres, which have only recently begun to arrive in
large numbers. And Lyra's world has Zeppelins and gipsy
boatmen, *just like our world* in relatively recent times.
It's only a couple of accidental sparks which banished
Zeppelins from the skies of our world. And Lyra's
world must have had at the very least a Mr. Zeppelin
with the same hobby as our Count von Zeppelin.
Martin Gradwell
> > .. I can't read
> > his mind. But I can read his mind about atheism and devil
> > worship, because he telegraphs it all throughout his text.
> > And practically every page of it suggests approval of
> > devil worship - you really have to be blind not to see it.
> That's absolute tosh, nobody can read minds, you are basing your
> conjecture on your own experiences and prejudices as we all do.
Nobody can read minds, but some people can read words
that have been written down. And sometimes those words
give a clue about what is in somebody's mind. And when
somebody gives the same clue, over and over, eventually
you might begin to suspect that they really mean what they
are saying.
> As an atheist Pullman would not believe in any form of worship, be it
> devil worship,wicca or that of the cult of the gardening program which
> seems to be raging throught the country
As an atheist he might not believe in any form of worship
(though atheism per se only precludes worship of a god or
gods, not worship of other things). But Pullman clearly
hates God. Now, how can you hate something you don't
believe in? In any case I didn't say that Pullman would "believe"
in devil worship, or in wicca. I said that he wouldn't tar them
with the same brush that he reserves for "the church"
(and in the case of wicca I qualified that with a "maybe").
He wouldn't tar devil-worship with that brush because it is as
anti-God as he apparently is. Because Satan (as presented
e.g. in Paradise Lost) has exactly the same aspirations and
world view as Lord Asriel. The only difference between
them is Lord Asriel's apparent mortality.
..
> > [Of the night-hag]: called
> > In secret, riding through the air she comes,
> > Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
> > With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon
> > Eclipses at their charms.
> >
> > See the parallels? Does the night-hag remind
> > you of anyone in particular?
> yup, but they're not there to illustrate wicca,
I never said they were.
>> devil worship,(which by the
> way, contrary to the belief of many christian groups isn't a part of
> wicca,)
I never said it was. Perhaps my mention of wicca
in the same sentence as a mention of devil worshippers
caused some confusion, but I never intended to equate
wicca with devil worship I thought Pullman might not
tar wicca with the same brush that he reserves for
"the church" because wicca is not part of "the church"
It worships different gods and goddesses, and is not
generally considered to be an "organised religion" with
a strict hierarchy and fixed rules. And the one clear rule
it does have, the Wiccan Rede ("An it harm none, do
as ye will") is not all that different from Pullman's own
creed, which appears to consist of the last four words.
..
> You may as well say that Pullman believes that we should all be
> worshipping Zeus and the olympians because of the presence of harpies.
AGAIN. I did not say that Pullman believes that we
should all be worshipping anything.
I said that "Only atheism, devil-worship and maybe wicca are exempt
[from Pullman's criticism of "the.Church"].
Stacie Hanes
> "weirdwolf" <weirdwo...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9486CC071DCE8iy...@130.133.1.4...
>> "Martin Gradwell" <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote in
>> news:bvu30b$7ra$1 @newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk:
> ..
>> As an atheist Pullman would not believe in any form of worship,
>> be it devil worship,wicca or that of the cult of the gardening
>> program which seems to be raging throught the country
>
> As an atheist he might not believe in any form of worship
> (though atheism per se only precludes worship of a god or
> gods, not worship of other things). But Pullman clearly
> hates God. Now, how can you hate something you don't
I can answer that. You can be an atheist and find the idea of organized
religion intolerable, and find many of the orders given in the holy writ
repugnant. It's not so much hating a god as hating the idea of the god that
people have transcribed.
Think of not believing in Bhaal, but finding the practice of tossing
children into an oven repellent. Okay? Some people feel that way about other
religions. Even Christianity.
Jut the devil's advocate, so to speak. And not that this isn't fascinating
(you've certainly convinced *me* to read the series at first opportunity)
but it is off-topic. Could we get it back to _Small Gods_ or take it
elsewhere, please?
Daibhid Ceannaideach
>From: "Martin Gradwell" mtgra...@btinternet.com
>Date: 06/02/04 15:05 GMT Standard Time
>Message-id: <c00dsg$u4p$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>
>
>
>"weirdwolf" <weirdwo...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>news:Xns9486CC071DCE8iy...@130.133.1.4...
>> As an atheist Pullman would not believe in any form of worship, be it
>> devil worship,wicca or that of the cult of the gardening program which
>> seems to be raging throught the country
>
>As an atheist he might not believe in any form of worship
>(though atheism per se only precludes worship of a god or
>gods, not worship of other things). But Pullman clearly
>hates God. Now, how can you hate something you don't
>believe in?
Dragging this vaguely back on topic, Terry has, in fact, described himself as
an atheist of the "angry with God for not existing" kind.
In any case I didn't say that Pullman would "believe"
>in devil worship, or in wicca. I said that he wouldn't tar them
>with the same brush that he reserves for "the church"
>(and in the case of wicca I qualified that with a "maybe").
>He wouldn't tar devil-worship with that brush because it is as
>anti-God as he apparently is.
And I think that's a false silogism. If the man's against all forms of
organised religion (and I don't know if he is or not; I'm halfway through
"Northern Lights" and know nothing about him personally), he's against *all*
forms of organised religion. Satanism would be anathema to him for pretty much
the same reasons as Christianity, or Scientology. Possibly more so.
Martin Gradwell
"Stacie Hanes" <house_d...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:trQUb.13551$GO6....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> Martin Gradwell wrote:
..
> > But Pullman clearly
> > hates God. Now, how can you hate something you don't
>
> I can answer that. You can be an atheist and find the idea of organized
> religion intolerable, and find many of the orders given in the holy writ
> repugnant.
I can see that. I just can't see Pullman as an atheist. I know
he claims to be one, but he seems to hate God more than he
hates organized religion.
..
> but it is off-topic. Could we get it back to _Small Gods_ or take it
> elsewhere, please?
I did intend to bring more Pratchett into this thread than I have done.
But as I mentioned earlier, I currently can't find my copy of SG.
So I'll bow out now.
Martin.
Mike Stevens
> "weirdwolf" <weirdwo...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9486CC071DCE8iy...@130.133.1.4...
>> As an atheist Pullman would not believe in any form of worship, be
>> it devil worship,wicca or that of the cult of the gardening program
>> which seems to be raging throught the country
>
> As an atheist he might not believe in any form of worship
> (though atheism per se only precludes worship of a god or
> gods, not worship of other things). But Pullman clearly
> hates God. Now, how can you hate something you don't
> believe in?
I don't accept that Pullman is anything as simple as most people
understand in the word "atheist". Following his examplars, Milton (a
verty convinved Christian) and Blake (probably a non-Chrsistiasn
theist), he is properly described (IMO) as "anti-clerical".
> In any case I didn't say that Pullman would "believe"
> in devil worship, or in wicca. I said that he wouldn't tar them
> with the same brush that he reserves for "the church"
> (and in the case of wicca I qualified that with a "maybe").
> He wouldn't tar devil-worship with that brush because it is as
> anti-God as he apparently is.
I don't read Pullman as being anti-God so much as anti-worship, so I'd
expect him to be as anti-devil-worship as he is anti-Christian worship.
Oh, dear, I've been tempted back into a thread I tried to stay out of at
one point because I thought it was off-topic.
Graycat
<mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>No. The Discworld began as a light-hearted comic reflection
>on our world.
Actually, no. It _began_ as parody of the fantasy genre, then it
became a light-hearted comic reflection of our world, and now it's a
reflection of our world with comic elements.
I'm not replying to the rest of this post because I said most of the
stuff I thought was worth saying in my post above, and you haven't
answered it. Besides, HDM is very [I] so we should probably move or go
to email.
Martin Gradwell
but this bit is at least relevant to discworld so I'll answer it here.
Martin.
"Graycat" <gra...@passagen.se> wrote in message
news:th6820la9prfod13i...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 6 Feb 2004 12:59:13 -0000, "Martin Gradwell"
> <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>
> >No. The Discworld began as a light-hearted comic reflection
> >on our world.
>
> Actually, no. It _began_ as parody of the fantasy genre, then it
> became a light-hearted comic reflection of our world, and now it's a
> reflection of our world with comic elements.
"There was, for example, the theory that A'Tuin had come
from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or
steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. This theory was
popular among academics. An alternative, favoured by
those of a religious persuasion, was that A'Tuin was
crawling from the birthplace to the time of mating ...This
was known as the Big Bang hypothesis." from TCOM.
You can call this a parody of the fantasy genre if you like,
I know what I prefer to call it. You may even find
parts of TCOM which are a parody of the fantasy
genre, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you did, but
I bet I can find at least as many reflections of our
world as you can find parodies of fantasy. Twoflower
is a parody of the type of Tourist who sees everywhere
as "picturesque". Even at this early stage of the game
the Agatean Empire seems a bit like China. and the
effect of the concept of "in-sewer-ants" on the populace
of Ankh Morpork - very Roundworld, I would say.
>
> I'm not replying to the rest of this post because I said most of the
> stuff I thought was worth saying in my post above, and you haven't
> answered it.
Umm? I thought I'd answered everything, point by point
by point. Checking: ... science fiction is an evil genre? Answered.
Or is it that scifi, unlike fantasy, is documentary? Answered
Or are you just being a pedant? Answered
... and so on. Yup, all answered. Not naming any names,
it's *someone else* who has been snipping wholesale and moving
on by raising new points. The only thing I didn't comment on
that I can see was "the dark is rising", which is a book I haven't
read.
> Besides, HDM is very [I] so we should probably move or go
> to email.
Will do.
Graycat
<mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>I do intend to exit this thread, and tie up loose ends via email,
>but this bit is at least relevant to discworld so I'll answer it here.
It's pretty much all DW now, so changed the subject line.
>"Graycat" <gra...@passagen.se> wrote in message
>news:th6820la9prfod13i...@4ax.com...
>> Actually, no. It _began_ as parody of the fantasy genre, then it
>> became a light-hearted comic reflection of our world, and now it's a
>> reflection of our world with comic elements.
>
>"There was, for example, the theory that A'Tuin had come
>from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or
>steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. This theory was
>popular among academics. An alternative, favoured by
>those of a religious persuasion, was that A'Tuin was
>crawling from the birthplace to the time of mating ...This
>was known as the Big Bang hypothesis." from TCOM.
>
>You can call this a parody of the fantasy genre if you like,
>I know what I prefer to call it.
I prefer to call it one quote from an entire book. I'm not saying that
DW didn't reflect our universe even at the start, I'm saying that
that's not what the emphasis was on. Not IMO anyway.
>You may even find
>parts of TCOM which are a parody of the fantasy
>genre, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you did, but
>I bet I can find at least as many reflections of our
>world as you can find parodies of fantasy. Twoflower
>is a parody of the type of Tourist who sees everywhere
>as "picturesque". Even at this early stage of the game
>the Agatean Empire seems a bit like China. and the
>effect of the concept of "in-sewer-ants" on the populace
>of Ankh Morpork - very Roundworld, I would say.
Fantasy as a whole of course deals with things of our world as well,
being as how most of the inspiration comes from here. Take Eddings for
one, reading the Belgariad is quite fun if you play spot the
country/era. There are vikings, romans, egyptians, mongols, 18th
century french people...even some greeks iirc.
In TCOM and TLF I think that the emphasis is on playing with fantasy
clichés. Twoflower is a great example in that he believes in all the
fairy-tale stuff, and Pterry then get's to dispute them. Basically you
have two mismatched companions, one of who is a (failed) wizard, and
they go out and have a whole bunch of adventures. Along the way they
meet (not in correct order because I can't remember it) Bravd and the
Weasel (Fafrdh & the Gray Mouser - Fritz Leiber) trolls, a red headed
barbarian woman (Red Sonia anyone?), dragons, some other barbarian
hero, druids, a virgin sacrifice, Cohen the barbarian (Conan), fall
off the edge of the world, finds a gnome, visit the gingerbread house
and finally save the world from certain doom.
All of these things are very common in classic Sword and Sorcery
novels and fairy tales, and not so common in our world. Even the set
up (a series of disconnected events and mini-stories) is very much
like Sword and Sorcery. There are the in-sewer-ants and eco-gnomics,
the reference to computers and a quick visit on an airplane, but
mostly the roundworld references that can't be based on the fantasy
parody are fairly few. The way UU works in TCOM and TLF is much more
reminiscent of the usual magic school idea than on roundworld
university life, whereas in later books the opposite is true.
The Agatean Empire is quite a bit like China, but again, this isn't
unusual in fantasy litterature either. The Murgoes of the Belgariad
are pretty much Mongols, the Servant of the Empire series by Raymond
E. Feist is entirely set in a sort of pseudo China/Japan and the
Seanchan in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series are quite strongly
oriental as well. And this is of course disregarding the fact that
there is fantasy literature set in an imagined ancient China
(Chinoiserie).
>> I'm not replying to the rest of this post because I said most of the
>> stuff I thought was worth saying in my post above, and you haven't
>> answered it.
>
>Umm? I thought I'd answered everything, point by point
>by point.
Sorry, I meant that one in the other subthread (about His Dark
Materials). The one Stacie and Crowfoot replied to. I didn't intend to
doubt your debating skills or anything like that, just point to that
other post.
Graycat
Oooh, that subject line is brillinat...I'm so proud of myself...sniff
<wipes tear from corner of eye>
sigh.
Duke of URL
Graycat <gra...@passagen.se> radiated into the WorldWideWait:
> Oooh, that subject line is brillinat...I'm so proud of
> myself...sniff <wipes tear from corner of eye>
> sigh.
And do you plan on translating "what does is DW about" into English?
Maybe after you clean the brilliantine out of your eyes?
mrcreek
gcpc20logcqeajs80...@4ax.com...
>
> Oooh, that subject line is brillinat...I'm so proud of myself...sniff
> <wipes tear from corner of eye>
>
> sigh.
Oooh, that sujbect line does ununderstambable
<scratches his head>
c:
weirdwolf
news:gcpc20logcqeajs80...@4ax.com:
>
> Oooh, that subject line is brillinat...I'm so proud of myself...sniff
> <wipes tear from corner of eye>
>
> sigh.
>
I thought I had wandered into an Arthur appreciation group..
(OO the perils of having young children)
Graycat
Well...it's a very beutiful case of not reading what you write...first
it was "what does DW parody?" then it was supposed to be "what is DW
about?" but became as it is.
And that other post of mine was sarcastic.
bewtifulfreak
> On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 11:42:25 -0600, "Duke of URL"
> <macbenahATkdsiDOTnet> wrote:
>
>> In news:gcpc20logcqeajs80...@4ax.com,
>> Graycat <gra...@passagen.se> radiated into the WorldWideWait:
>>
>>> Oooh, that subject line is brillinat...I'm so proud of
>>> myself...sniff <wipes tear from corner of eye>
>>> sigh.
>>
>> And do you plan on translating "what does is DW about" into English?
>> Maybe after you clean the brilliantine out of your eyes?
>
> Well...it's a very beutiful case of not reading what you write...first
> it was "what does DW parody?" then it was supposed to be "what is DW
> about?" but became as it is.
>
> And that other post of mine was sarcastic.
LOL, I almost said something about that....for what it's worth, I got it. :)
--
Ann
A California Yankee in Queen Elizabeth's Court
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/bewtifulfreak
Martin Gradwell
> >".. An alternative, favoured by
> >those of a religious persuasion, was that A'Tuin was
> >crawling from the birthplace to the time of mating ...This
> >was known as the Big Bang hypothesis." from TCOM.
> >
> >You can call this a parody of the fantasy genre if you like,
> >I know what I prefer to call it.
>
> I prefer to call it one quote from an entire book. I'm not saying that
> DW didn't reflect our universe even at the start, I'm saying that
> that's not what the emphasis was on. Not IMO anyway.
I could quote more, but then we'd need spoilers even though
it's an old book. Anyway, back when we were comparing
Pratchett with HDM, my point was that you can easily tell
that Discworld is fantasy, because the origins of everything,
even of such common things as newspapers and personal
names like Samuel, are very different on the Discworld
from the origins of the similar items in Roundworld. In the
last couple of discworld books, that has been obscured
because there hasn't been much delving into origins.
Even if I did concede that Discworld began as a parody
of the fantasy genre rather than a parody of the real
world, that would just serve to reinforece my point that
it is very easy to recognise that the discworld is fantasy.
..
> Fantasy as a whole of course deals with things of our world as well,
> being as how most of the inspiration comes from here. Take Eddings for
> one, reading the Belgariad is quite fun if you play spot the
> country/era. There are vikings, romans, egyptians, mongols, 18th
> century french people...even some greeks iirc.
Yes, so a parody of fantasy is still a reflection of our
world. The difference is that it's been through more than
one mirror, so that sometimes the image ends up being
the right way around. So you get things like tourists and
cameras and economics and insurance and so on, which
you wouldn't get in the average fantasy. But even thouh
we have these realworld elements, it's still perfectly
clear that we are dealing with fantasy because ....
>
> In TCOM and TLF I think that the emphasis is on playing with fantasy
> clichés. Twoflower is a great example in that he believes in all the
> fairy-tale stuff, and Pterry then get's to dispute them. Basically you
> have two mismatched companions, one of who is a (failed) wizard, and
> they go out and have a whole bunch of adventures. Along the way they
> meet (not in correct order because I can't remember it) Bravd and the
> Weasel (Fafrdh & the Gray Mouser - Fritz Leiber) trolls, a red headed
> barbarian woman (Red Sonia anyone?), dragons, some other barbarian
> hero, druids, a virgin sacrifice, Cohen the barbarian (Conan), fall
> off the edge of the world, finds a gnome, visit the gingerbread house
> and finally save the world from certain doom.
... so how could anyone mistake it for anything other than
a fantasy? But there are elements of the realworld too, some
culled directly from the real world, and others arriving via
a roundabout route from the fantasy sources. It's like Ankh
Morpork water, it comes from a pure highland source, it's
just that it's had to pass through a few kidneys along the
way.
...
> >> I'm not replying to the rest of this post because I said most of the
> >> stuff I thought was worth saying in my post above, and you haven't
> >> answered it.
> >
> >Umm? I thought I'd answered everything, point by point
> >by point.
>
> Sorry, I meant that one in the other subthread (about His Dark
> Materials). The one Stacie and Crowfoot replied to. I didn't intend to
> doubt your debating skills or anything like that, just point to that
> other post.
OK. The post you're referring to has now been answered,
via email, or most of it has. I'll try to tie up any other loose
ends in that thread via email too, but it may be a couple of
days before I get round to answering every question. Even
some of the shortest points seem to require big answers,
and it's hard to dig up the motivation when you've an
audience of just one.
Graycat
<mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Even if I did concede that Discworld began as a parody
>of the fantasy genre rather than a parody of the real
>world, that would just serve to reinforece my point that
>it is very easy to recognise that the discworld is fantasy.
I know that, my point was that it's also very easy to recognise that
HDM is fantasy. I was trying to make this point by a roundabout
comparison with something I thought we were all agreed was firmly
fantasy. I'm sorry it wasn't clear.
Baba Yaga
Terry Pratchett <tprat...@unseen.demon.co.uk> wrote, in
alt.books.pratchett:
>In message <kg4g10t7sf896crm7...@4ax.com>, Baba Yaga
><spam...@phonecoop.coop> writes
>>Well, drat it, I go out of my way not to step on H. Linge's feet, &
>>land squarely on yours. Ain't this communication lark fun?
>
>I don't feel trodden on:-) It's just worth keeping in mind that Vimes
>isn't operating in 'modern' society and 'wrongheaded' really isn't
>really the word.
Point taken. It wasn't the best description.
Baba Yaga
--
It is a curious feature of psychiatric theory that ... we have
clinical terms for disturbed persons, but not for /disturbing/
persons.
- R. D. Laing
Sam Malone
> wholly good/bad people/organisations, which is of course rather like real
> life, it aint black and white.
If you like that in HDM then you'll probably like David Gemmel. His books
are often like that.
"Jago Illustration" <jago.t...@earthling.INVALIDnet> wrote in message
news:401e9...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
>
> "Craig A. Finseth" <ne...@finseth.com> wrote in message
> news:401e70ed$0$41283$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
> > In article <bvlpkg$685$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> > Martin Gradwell <mtgra...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> > >Spoiler for NW and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >HDM is, especially in its latter parts, a torrent of hatred
> > >and twisted thinking. I think something terrible must have
> > >happened to Philip Pullman to push him over an edge.
> > ...
> >
> > I disagree strongly: it is a book that has depth and richness. It is
> > ultimately about two young people having to grow -- very quickly -- to
> > the point where they need to make a decision that literally affects
> > their worlds.
> >
> > It is also a story where the traditonally "good" organizations are
> > shown to be not good at all and where someone thought to be very "bad"
> > was in fact very good. Sort of. Its complicated. For example, he
> > made it clear that many people who are part of the Church would be
> > aghast if they knew what Mrs. Coulter was doing. So the Church isn't
> > a monolithic "evil" organization. There are lots of shades of gray and
> > explorations of good, bad, innocence, control, and other topics.
> >
> > I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this series to anyone old enough to
> > comprehend it. Which includes one of my children but not most adults
> > (:-)(:-(.
> >
> > Craig
>
>
> I'd second this opinion, I think HDM are some of the best books I've ever
> read. They truly can be read on many levels. My younger brother read them
> when he was about 10 and thought they were great, but completely missed
out
> on the 'love story' element of the books, which for me was one of the most
> poignant aspects of the story. I also love the way that there are very few
> wholly good/bad people/organisations, which is of course rather like real
> life, it aint black and white.
>
> jago
>
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.573 / Virus Database: 363 - Release Date: 28/01/2004
>
>
Sam Malone
the end that will probably mean i wont read books 2 and 3 cos I think
they're gonna be dissapointing - the bit where Lord Azriel kills Roger -
Lyra's reaction to it just made me stop believing in her as a character. It
was like 'oh look, Roger's dead.... oh well, lets go to the new world'....
"Rgemini" <roy.OMITTH...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:bvrdhc$us9od$1...@ID-203370.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Bravo Martin! You have expressed exactly my own feeling about HDM and in
a
> far more cogent and clearly reasoned form than I ever could.
>
> In matters of faith I am humanist and a-gnostic, but know well enough the
> teachings of Christ and how they have been corrupted over the years by
> deluded or self-seeking people, and how that corruption became the
> established church. But that does not make Pullman's HDM worldview in any
> way acceptable to me, and I recognise the good things that have been done
as
> well as the repellant.
>
> What I don't understand is how the religious zealots who see evil in Harry
> Potter and try to ban it don't make a much bigger fuss over HDM, which as
> far as I can see promotes every heresy that's ever been!
>
> On a different tack, I was given HDM for christmas and read the entire
> trilogy in one, seven-hour sitting. OK I finished at 3am and wasn't up to
> much next day, but I wanted to see how it all ended and you know how it is
> ...
>
> Rgemini
>
>
Martin Gradwell
> I only read book 1, and while i was gripped at first something happened by
> the end that will probably mean i wont read books 2 and 3 cos I think
> they're gonna be dissapointing - the bit where Lord Azriel kills Roger -
> Lyra's reaction to it just made me stop believing in her as a character. It
> was like 'oh look, Roger's dead.... oh well, lets go to the new world'....
To be fair to Pullman, Lyra at this stage isn't uncaring about
what has just happened to Roger, and she goes into the new world
not out of curiosity, but because she is determined to thwart her
parents and anyone who sides with them. "If they all think Dust
is bad, it must be good ... we'll search for Dust, and when we've
found it we'll know what to do". At this stage she hasn't bought
into the nonsense about Asriel being some kind of hero because of
his opposition to God. She can see both her parents as what they
are, cold blooded killers.
It is Asriel and Mrs Coulter that are totally unbelievable,
being so ridiculously and melodramatically evil that you almost
have to laugh. Asriel has just killed Roger, and all he and Mrs.
Coulter can do is embrace passionately and spin grandiose schemes,
oblivious to the corpse which is the price of their triumph, or
to their daughter who is at that moment holding the corpse in
her arms. Asriel must surely have had a moustache, and must surely
have been twirling it at that moment, and yet unaccountably there
is no mention of it in the book.
But to move on: I now have "Small Gods", and so I can
say something about why I find it preferable.
First of all, having hastily re-read it, I have to amend my
opinion about SG. I did think it was about religion, but now
I don't. It is about what is "fundamentally true", as opposed
to what is "trivially true". So much so, in fact, that it can
be called prophetic.
"You had to have a mind like Vorbis's to plan your retaliation
before your attack". That was written years before the real
Vorbis ascended to his throne. True Prophecy, from someone who
describes himself as "probably an atheist". Makes you think,
doesn't it? And even though the real Vorbis makes a great show
of his religion, that isn't what really drives his policies.
You can have Vorbises with religion, and Vorbises without.
It makes no real difference. What matters is that they are
Vorbises.
Even though the book isn't about religion, and is written by
a self-confessed "probable atheist", it has subtexts which could
be described as Christian. Om says, talking about believers
"I think, if you want thousands, you have to fight for one",
which is the parable of the Good Shepherd in a nutshell.
And that is how Pratchett makes his characters likeable.
Even though many are flawed - Om is an ex-smiter who in the
past never really cared about his followers, but he comes
to realise some important truths, and he doesn't just voice
them, he lives by them. One of the most important truths is
the importance of truth. Om knows that if he loses his only
real believer then he is finished, and yet he keeps challenging
Brutha's preconceptions despite the risks involved, and even
eventually tells Brutha the truth about how many believers he
has. Similarly we have Didactylos with his "Nevertheless
... the Turtle Moves!". For both of these characters, the
importance of truth seems to transcend personal risk.
And for any reader who understands the importance of truth,
this trait in these characters is enough to transcend their
flaws.
This is where Pratchett contrasts most starkly with Pullman.
Lyra is described consistently as a liar, and that is how she
describes herself. And she does lie (frequently, though mainly
to the villains and with good reason). And in the end she falls
for some nonsense from her father, who I think it can be safely
said is the Father of Lies. And she is the heroine.
The ultimate message is that truth is as unimportant as the
life of a minor character. Both can be sacrificed, for a
"greater" goal. And the characters aren't really characters,
they are props on which this message can be hung. And it is
this message which is currently dragging the whole world
down into a terrible abyss. It is the *opposite* of Pratchett's
message.
Charles Bishop
<al...@aleccawley.com> wrote:
[euthanasia]
>But the morally right thing is not necessarily the legally right thing.
>The existence of laws which would allow the morally permissible forms of
>euthanasia might have unpleasant side effects. One is the possibility of
>the elderly and infirm being pressured into asking for a euthanasia they
>do not really want because they feel that they are too much of a burden
>on their carers. Another is the opposite - the fear of those who are
>beginning to lose their mental faculties (a situation of which I have
>closer knowledge than I would wish) may fear that euthanasia is being
>planned for them by their carers - to the distresses both of the aged
>person and the unjustly accused carers.
>
>I find it difficult to form a good balance between these two
>alternatives. I feel that the current compromise, in satisfactory as it
>is, is not nearly as bad as the proponents of either extreme make out.
>While it could possibly be improved, I don't think that the extremes of
>outright legalisation or of total banning of "assisted deaths" would be
>better.
In a perfectly working society[1] there might be a law against such, but
those who violated the law wouldn't be charged unless it was an egregious
violation. While not of the same degree, speeding comes to mind. A
policeofficer will pass any number of cars that are going above the limit,
but be able to pull over one in particular if she needs to. Or if it comes
to that, a jury wouldn't convict if the circumstances were right.
charles
[1] much like "assume a spherical cow" I know
Charles Bishop
>In article <MPG.1a79179e1...@news.cis.dfn.de>, Peter Ellis
><pj...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> al...@spamspam.co.uk wrote:
>> >
>> >Also, there is a lot of well understood turning of blind eyes which
>> >could be stamped out if people wanted.
>>
>> That's true - I'd like to see that "blind eye" formalised and regulated
>> a bit better, so the boundaries are clearer for all concerned.
>>
>> Peter
>
>I don't think it's possible, though, not really. Seems to me that each
>death is too indelibly individual and personal in its details and
>implications to be fairly regulable by one set of rules for all; unless
>you are Death, of course, in which case --
Assuming I've got the attributions correct.
I think you'll find though that if the boundaries are made clearer, they
will be more restricitive. It's much easier to say "no" than to say "well,
in this case, we can do this but because it's slightly different from that
where we did otherwise." Laws are made to please a vocal group, whether
minority or majority, and mostly don't leave room for judgment.
charles