Reviews, Interviews, News, Commentaries, Excerpts, My Top 5 Books, Wilson's Bookmarks, Book AwardsThe Chronicles of Atheism
The story begins with a girl hiding in a wardrobe. It continues with a series of adventures in which the girl passes through gateways into other worlds, meeting witches, figures from ancient mythology, and talking animals along the way. Ultimately, it takes her into the afterlife and to an apocalyptic battle between supernatural powers.
Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials, has some striking parallels to C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. Between protective beasts, snowy landscapes, and references to a prophecy only the girl may be able to fulfill, the ads for The Golden Compass—the first installment of Pullman's series coming to the big screen on December 7—look made to attract fans of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. New Line Cinema has also gone out of its way to link the new film to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which the studio also adapted.
But His Dark Materials presents a strikingly different kind of tale from the ones told by Lewis and Tolkien; on a certain level, it even opposes them. Pullman, writing in The Guardian on the occasion of Lewis's centenary in 1998, said the Narnia books are "one of the most ugly and poisonous things I have ever read," with "no shortage of … nauseating drivel." Peter Hitchens, writing in The Spectator in 2003, named Pullman "the Anti-Lewis."
While Lewis and Tolkien wrote stories imbued with Christian imagery, Pullman's trilogy—which has sold millions of copies and won numerous literary awards, including the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Prize—depicts the death of God and the creation of a "Republic of Heaven" that has no need for a King. And while Lewis and Tolkien kept the Christian elements fairly subtle—even the Narnia books ...
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JOhn Downunder
Only if Religion were begot from the face of the earth then the true essence of this planet and it's kingdoms shine like it should. Religion and fantasy are one and the same represented by a coin and by the same forces who create both. There are truths hidden deep within and there are false things painted big like the sun on a midday summer day. Are we not in a dream world where the ream ends when we subject the body to sleep? Life is not what it seems to be. The falsities of life are everywhere. Where theres fantasists there you will find war mongering religionists. You could never find the common ground of harmony and peace in between. Step back and view your world from a different angle, there you will see that all is not what it seems to be. Peace is but a thought away. Try it it is powerful and real. Let your thoughts create your tomorrow.
MBURU KIMANI
When such films get in to the market rather than find fault in Christian faith offer a helping hand in spreading the Gospel. think of split in the eary church it facilitated a wider coverage of the same, promoting curosity to that religion thus populorising it even to far of people who didn't have the slittest qure of the trueth. emptiness due to caramity or sort of problems compells human beings to seek or think of how and when can a suppernatural power or force help them out of pain troubling them theirfore though straineous the film in a way will bring many to their creater
Daphne
I have read the books. They are imaginative,colourful and a darn good read - and that is all. Like Dan Brown (and his forgotten Da Vinci Code,) Phillip Pullman is just a story teller. If his books were true they would be non-fiction and why does he think he is the first to 'suss' it all out anyway! Books like these and the infamous 'God Delusion' (which I have read) will all end up in car boot sales and charity shops, read or unread - whatever - then there will be the next 'sensation' I will see the 'The Golden Compass' because I love fantasy films including, and especially Harry Potter, but my Christian faith is unshakable and always will be, because it is the Truth.