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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Monday, February 04, 2008 - 8:53 pm
I thought that we could start book spoiler threads for in depth discussions of various books where the discussion includes ending spoilers. As a starting point, Mame and I were discussing Philip Pullman's trilogy "His Dark Materials", the first of which is "The Golden Compass". The first book was made into a movie and there is considerable controversy over the author's atheism and how he depicts religion and god throughout the series. I'll repeat some of what I said in my post in the other thread. I enjoyed the first two books and I was very curious about how he would finish the series. He did a wonderful job of setting the stage for a grand finale. I was fascinated and on the edge of my seat and very curious about how he would pull it all together. Now the bad part. I don't know if I didn't understand what he was trying to do or say but I just didn't feel that he completed the series in a satisfying way. There were many loose ends and some truly head shaking stuff. Head shaking in that it didn't make sense to me or seem meaningful. Maybe someone here can explain it to me (Mame?). To really start with the extremely obvious, what on earth were "His Dark Materials", how did they work and what role did they play in the book?
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Monday, February 04, 2008 - 10:41 pm
This first part is copied from the other thread: Jimmer & company... I finished His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman today. Book 1 - Golden Compass, Book 2 - Subtle Knife, Book 3 - Amber Spyglass. Well I wept through the last chunk of pages... and I loved it. (Still think the story is too visually violent so will wait and rent the movie when it comes out. No way I could handle it on a big screen in the theatre!) But the entire trilogy was a complete pageturner from start to finish. As for the controversy... I'd heard so much misinformation in the media that I was twice as surprised by a lot of the events in the book as I would have been when it went in directions I was not expecting. I found it interesting that other religions were not part of the story at all, as if they don't exist or are not worthy of mention. THAT bugged me at the end, when it hit me, that The Church was the main antagonist, rather than religion per se. And in doing so, Pullman may not realize it, but he's validating that particular God. He may not approve of it, but at least it's a foe worthy of acknowledging for his story. That's pretty much the only thing that p'od me, other than the gore. OMIGOSH the books just swim in blood and torture, etc. Yuck to the power of 10. LOL. But taking that into consideration, I loved the books, and couldn't put them down. And I wept through the last few pages... so I have to side with the fans on this one. I kept DH who is Catholic up to speed on the theories of the book as he has NOT read it. But he's not offended. He says 'It's the point of view of someone who doesn't believe in God. But he's entitled to his opinion.' DH is keeping an open mind til he sees the movie with me when it comes out on dvd. And then he may possibly have a different opinion. Or not. I'll report back at that point - in the movie thread. I was joking with someone and I said it was as if Harry Potter and Hermione visited the Lord of the Rings via Narnia. --- My thoughts: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOLKS...! Jimmer, Re: your question about what His Dark Materials actually is/was... I don't have the books, just the 3rd one which I have to return, as I loaned them from a galpal. BUT I think that it's taken from one of the many quotes that precedes each chapter, by Milton, or whomever. If you go back over the 3 books and check out all the quotes... I'm pretty sure it's there somewhere. Maybe at the beginning of one of the books... I can ask my friend E who lent me the books AND has seen the film 2x. My guess is that DUST is the dark material that you can only see through the Amber Spyglass. But that's a total top of my head guess. Or it could be the evil spectres. I'll ask my friend who's probably an expert on the story by now. LOL I was so disappointed with the ending too. Felt cut off at the knees frankly, and didn't see much point to it. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER: Read further at your own risk folks! ... I think that living together happily til she was in her 20s would have made more sense than being alone separately til old age. Who's to say she wouldn't be hit by a bus in her 20's anyways? duh. Or they could have died young together eventually either from suicide or natural causes. IMHO there was NO NEED for them to separate, except to punch the reader in the kishka's (solar plexus/guts) one last time. They kept saying she was the new Eve and basically he was the new Adam in the idyllic garden world... but I never saw even a hint of that play out. And I got the feeling that they only uh, necked innocently, so its not like she got pregnant and gave birth to a Christlike figure, or a new tribe or something, which is what I was kinda expecting, actually. I felt the whole pseudo-Adam and Eve thing was a big red herring. What do you think?
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Monday, February 04, 2008 - 10:45 pm
I enjoyed his playing with words in the Names... Mrs. MARY Coulter... LORD ASRIEL (God Israel)
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Monday, February 04, 2008 - 11:15 pm
Also Lyra is a Constellation! As for Belacqua... omigolly I googled it and THIS came up... Danté's Belacqua: Sitting in the shade of a large boulder, with his arms wrapped around his knees and his head lowered, Belacqua epitomizes the lazy spirits who waited until the last minute before repenting and turning to God. These souls must now wait in Ante-Purgatory for as long as they negligently delayed their repentance on earth: that is, the length of their mortal lives. Uh... sound familiar... so Pullman basically FORESHADOWED his story via her name! Lyra = Constellation = heaven Belacqua = Purgatory = hell Repentance comes into it... she felt guilty for poor little Roger, so she put Pan temporarily aside to do her REPENTANCE. Pantalaimon - His name is that of a saint in the Orthodox churches, St. Panteleimon. "Panta" means "all" in Greek, and "eleison" means "have mercy" in Greek, thus Pantalaimon means "all merciful." Jimmer, There's meat on them there bones... lots to discuss, here! LOL
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Monday, February 04, 2008 - 11:33 pm
Oops, it's not Mary Coulter... it's Mrs. Marissa Coulter (I just meant to point out that its similar to the biblical name Mary...) Wow, sorry I got so carried away here in this thread... 
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Tuesday, February 05, 2008 - 6:22 am
I agree that it is a fascinating story. There is so much there that can be discussed! That's interesting what you found out about the names! He was very clever. It just seems that somehow he completely ran out of steam in the third book. I'll post more about this a little later.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Tuesday, February 05, 2008 - 10:58 am
I'll look forward to your next post, and I invite anyone else who's read it and has some insights and opinions to toss in their ... as I am really jazzed about this book. (Ya think? LOL) I've never belonged to a book discussion group but I'd join one just to talk about this one! Jimmer could you could change the thread title to THE GOLDEN COMPASS Literary discussion thread & SPOILERS so that folks know we are specifically discussing this book. Or not. Up to you... 
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Tuesday, February 05, 2008 - 1:14 pm
Sounds like a good idea to me. Originally I thought we could have one spoiler thread for different series of books, but then people who had read one series and not another would get spoiled so this is probably better!
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Tuesday, February 05, 2008 - 9:49 pm
Jimmer, Scholastic has published several different books of The Movie Version of The Golden Compass for kids. I was browsing through a couple of them and was captivated by the gorgeous photos. MAYBE it's not to gory for me after all. LOL I dunno. Trying to convince myself to see it on the big screen. But I'm STILL a big chicken. BTW, the new thread title looks terrific. Thx. 
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Tuesday, February 05, 2008 - 10:02 pm
The production values of the movie look beautiful. I haven't seen the movie yet but I understand that they down played the religious element of the story. I can't see how they will be able to do that if they make movies out of the last two books.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Wednesday, February 06, 2008 - 1:18 pm
It sure will be interesting to see the direction they take the films in... They may be slowly leading up to it and putting it all out there in all it's controversial glory by the 3rd film, counting on all the fans from the 1st 2 films. That's my best guess.
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Calamity
Member
10-18-2001
| Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 11:32 pm
I wouldn't call the movie gory although there was one scene that is shockingly violent - audible gasps and "whoas" in our theater when it happened. Anyone who's seen the movie will probably know what part I'm talking about. And then there's the climactic battle however it's not that graphic. I mean, yeah, it's brutal but not really bloody. Actually, with the witches flying around it's a bit more graceful than the standard epic fantasy film battle scene. I know that sounds odd. I found the slain fighters' daemons disappearing more upsetting than the actual blows because it was like seeing life being literally snuffed out. They didn't hide the story's religious element but there was a lot about it that they left out. I suspect to most people who hadn't read the novel it was somewhat fuzzy. Last I had heard was that the N. American box office was so disappointing (the trilogy is far better known and embraced in the U.K. than it is over here) that it's unlikely any sequels will be made, which is a shame. Although I think they'd be better if filmed as mini-series rather than feature films.
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Spunky
Member
10-08-2001
| Thursday, February 21, 2008 - 9:51 am
I just finished the Subtle Knife... maybe someone could open that thread or rename this thread to include all 3 books. I am waiting for the Amber Spyglass with some impatience. I am astonished at the imagination of the author, just when I thought I read so many science fiction that there couldn't possibily be more incredible scenarios, here comes Pullman and makes me see infinite imagination... I can't decide which of the 2 books I read is the better one, the Golden Compass was the first and had a major impact of course, but the second book kept me reading for it's even darker material... I didn't really appreciate the spoiler towards the end of the book of what will become of Lyra, maybe because I didn't quite like the idea of this Eve... too close to the biblical story... I hoped he stayed away from those references... Anyway, what I really like is the concept of this great confrontation between the two great forces of the universe, the good and the evil and maybe getting an idea of why our universe has these two opposites... only Pullman doesn't necessarily say that the church is on the 'good' side, and could possibly be on the 'evil' side... I can understand now why the uproar among Christians.. but what a waste of speculations when the novels are such a great reading for young and adults.
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Friday, February 22, 2008 - 12:49 pm
Spunky, the thread title here works perfectly for me because it has both the Popular title of the first book THE GOLDEN COMPASS which is now well-known due to the film. And the title HIS DARK MATERIALS which is the actual name of the entire trilogy, which folks who read the books should be familiar with, IMHO. I think listing all three books would make for a very LONG thread title. But I don't care, and it's not up to me. As for THE SUBTLE KNIFE, I felt it was the easiest of the three books to read and felt more like a bridge between the first and the last book. As much as I couldn't put down any of the 3 books, I whipped especially quickly through the Subtle Knife.
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Spunky
Member
10-08-2001
| Friday, March 14, 2008 - 9:52 am
Well, I just finished the last book, the Amber Spyglass and although I enjoyed the author's imagination I couldn't agree with it fully and it was a bit of disappointing as the ending goes. No, I didn't expect a happy ending but neither the "close-minded" ending, for an author who was showing such a vivid imagination the plot did end quite lamely... The shutting of all the windows to other worlds was like shutting all hopes for a universe where knowledge and wisdom could be shared and learn from their diversity. It was a step backward, retrace to the "unknown" and be happy with being shut in your own world. No God and no Church, just be happy building a Republic of Haven (What? and how is this Republic going to be?) The fact that at the tender age of 13 Lyra and Will fall deeply in love in the absence of God and thus save the universe was such a letdown, what a nonsense. To me, it just didn't make sense at all. Love is eternal and it isn't either Lyra or Will's love on which the future of the world depends, so many other young couples experience love, either with God or no God, and all of them could have saved the world for that matter. But that was just something I didn't like one bit, I was expecting to understand why the universe was based on "good" and "evil" as the two forces that cannot exist unless they both exist, like there is no light without darkness, it's a law of the universe but to just blame that on the "Authority" doesn't make sense and by killing the "Authority" all is well. What a nonsense. However, I did enjoy the trilogy for the creative imagination of the author but not his message. And for the life of me I still can't visualize the Mulefa and hopefully the movie can show me just how they are made and function. In a way I'm glad I read the trilogy because now I can tackle The Narnia Chronicles story to which Pullman is so against it and see if I can find a better view of why the universe is ruled by "good" and "evil", as the two forces that cannot exist one without the other.
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