(miss murchison made me do this). More on "The Golden Compass" movie, 'cause I can't resist : comments.
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(no subject)
Mrs. Coulter changes a bit in the next two books and is redeemed. Lord Asrial becomes darker and in some respects nastier. (The film didn't show the dark twist at the end of the novel - where Asrial betrays his daughter's trust.)
From what I've read of Pullman's interviews - I got the feeling that he felt the adult world had a tendency to "romanticize" childhood. To idealize children. And had a desire to preserve childhood - unwillingly to allow people to grow up. His biggest issue with Lewis (His Dark Materials is in some respects Pullman's response to the Narnia books and Lewis's writings) - was that Lewis wanted to keep children children forever. That the child was innocent and it was better to be a child than an adult. To be submissive and humble. Pullman felt that childhood is just a stage - and the point is to become an adult. To learn. To know good and evil. To have free will - to not stay forever in the preadolescent garden of eden. (This was my reading of Pullman's take on it. It's subtler in The Golden Compass - but really obvious in the last volume of the triology - The Amber Spyglass.)
(no subject)
I find it fascinating that Pullman was in some sense reacting against Lewis' fantasy novels. I have to say that I am in complete sympathy with the idea that the essence of childhood is growing up. It's the constant changing, learning, and growing that makes it so full of wonder, rather than anything static or frozen in ignorance.
I'm reminded of a line from Dorothy L. Sayers (I think it was), arguing that when the Christian scriptures report Jesus saying that you have to enter the Kingdom like a little child, he didn't mean that Christian believers needed to be unquestioning, passive, ignorant, or infantilized. Rather, what is most characteristic about childhood is that eagerness to move forward, to grow up, and to ask as many questions and investigate as much as you possibly can towards that end. Rather than returning to the peace of the womb, the goal is to awaken on your fiftieth birthday with the same eagerness to learn and explore and see what the future holds as you did on your fifth birthday.
(no subject)
Yes. In a sermon that the pastor gave at the Midnight Mass I attended last night - he mentioned somewhat the same thing. That we should approach Christmas much as a child does - not with the innocence of a child, but the exuberance, the joy.
(no subject)
(no subject)