There's a delightful interview with Philip Pullman in More Intelligent Life. It brings up a question we've certainly discussed here when talking of Rowling, Lewis, Tolkien and -yes- Pullman. That is, What do these stories tell us of the big questions of God, Life, the Universe and Everything? (42 is only one answer.)

Pullman, in this interview, talks about his His Dark Materials as being a kind of anti-Narnia. He thinks Lewis did engage the big questions seriously, he just feels he gave rather nasty answers. And, curiously, Pullman refers to The Lord of the Rings as trivial. (I suppose I see his point. LOTR really doesn't offer us any moral vision except that of fate and nostalgia and honour and friendship. It's pretty much a Boy's Own morality.)

Well, I'm been reflecting on this article, which was sent to me by nowgirl, and I've been thinking of what she said to me. It does seem that the great British fantasists have all created religious cosmogonies and mythologies in order to ask the fundamental questions about human existence and social significance in a way that can be understood by young and old alike. Pullman's tale is that of Adam & Eve in the Garden. Rowling's tale echoes that story as well.

From the article:And alsoAre these the themes running through, not just Harry Potter and His Dark Materials, but the stories of Lewis, Tolkien, Susan Cooper and Susanna Clarke? Do these weavers of worlds create from the moral fibre of their tales a fabric of the universe from which we can clothe our thoughts? Do they engage us with moral questions as strong and as powerful as a Sunday sermon or a provocative essay in the NYTimes? Are, in fact, the most exciting questions about moral philosophy playing out at bedtime in the children's bedrooms of the nation?Do we submit to an author's imaginative world? Does the author enslave us, if only for the time we read? And do the rival narratives of these brilliant fantasists play out in our mind like the play within the play of Hamlet? "The play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

:-).

Okay, so here's the two things I'd like to ask Pullman about Tolkien before I'd be prepared to admit that Tolkien's contribution is any less relevant than Lewis's (and that Pullman is anything but simply underinformed on this point.)

First off, has he read the Silmarillion? Does he know that Tolkien conceived of "one great tale of the Jewels and the Rings"? There's a relatively new edition of the Silmarillion out that includes a letter from Tolkien describing his universe as a series of Falls. First, the world is created by Eru, the One. Then he creates demigods, the Valar, who sing the corporeal world into being as Eru directs the music. Then he creates angels, the Maiar, who are less than gods but exist before the dawn of time. Would Pullman change his mind if he knew that Gandalf begins his trajectory in the story as one of the Maiar, sent in the form of a man by the Valar to resist Sauron (another Maia)? And that they'd done this because in the past they'd tried interfering in the affairs of the corporeal world directly, and it didn't work. And there's also an alternate legend that posits that Gandalf was actually Manwe, Chief of the Valar, who came to Middle Earth to take on this last great task before removing Heaven from the physical world forever? And that Manwe's wife is Elbereth Gilthoniel, who everyone who's anyone prays to? And that Frodo carries the light of a Silmaril, ultimately set by the Valar as a star in the sky, in Galadriel's glass?

I see Tolkien's work as far more subtly religious than Lewis's. The primary sin in Tolkien's world is pride - wanting your own thing so much that you disregard the direction of Eru. And in a move that perhaps owes more to Paradise Lost than to the Old Testament, the Big Bad in the world is Melkor, mightiest of the Valar, who refuses to sing in harmony when the world was made but runs off on themes of his own that wreck everything. (Sauron is a servant of Melkor's.)

And here's where it gets really interesting - this is the second thing. Tolkien believed that creating this giant myth was actually a form of religious expression. He called it "subcreation" - creating a smaller universe within the larger, God-made universe, and saw it as an activity that glorified God perhaps more than any other. (Tolkien, while loving Lewis dearly, rather looked down on Narnia as an exercise in sloppy, half-baked subcreation. The deeper the detail in the imagined world, the closer to God it gets, in Tolkien's view.) So both the story and the act of writing it are religious expression.

And there's a third wrinkle, rather off-topic, but at this point I can hardly resist. Some of Tolkien's most powerful, ambiguous characters sin through pride in their own creations and a desire to retain ownership and control. Feanor is perhaps the best example - the brilliant artist and inventor who makes the Silmarils, fabulous jewels that contain the light of creation. When the Silmarils are stolen, Feanor and his sons make a terrible oath to assail anyone who claims a Silmaril, and this oath ends up tearing apart the whole world. There's a counterexample: the demigod Aule, who creates and gives life to the Dwarves. As they begin to wake up, Eru arrives and asks Aule what he has done, and Aule says "I'm sorry - if it was wrong, I will unmake them" but Eru is merciful and creates a place in the world for them, though acknowledging that Aule's creation and Eru's (the Elves) will never get along. Galadriel is another example of a powerful, ambiguous character in this way.

So Tolkien the subcreator seems to be saying "Make things, create things of your own, but you must always be willing to submit them for review by God and be ready to let them go if God's not in favor."

Now how is that any more trivial than Lewis, I ask you?? Any less worth debating?? Does anyone have an email for Pullman so I can ask him?

Well, I don't know that it really speaks to any moral outlook. It's seems to me that it's more divine genealogy than ethical conflict. I think Pullman thinks of Tolkien as a great storyteller, he just doesn't think he asks any tough questions.

Of course, if you'd like to ask him a tough question, you can. Here's his FAQ with a contact box at the bottom for those with questions that haven't been answered. I used it about a year ago and got a very nice reply from his PA.

The New Yorker ran a story on Pullman called Far From Narnia. In it Pullman expands on the differences between Lewis and Tolkien:AndI'm sure that'll amuse you.

And, of course, that's a common criticism of Tolkien. I love The Hobbit. And I enjoy the first two books of LOTR. But by the time I come to the last book, I'm getting pretty bored with this epic Manichaean battle. I think the tip off comes in the frequent mention of timelessness and worlds already lost. The overwhelming sadness and nostalgia in LOTR is really not very life affirming. It's perhaps why the most interesting characters are Merry, Pippin, and Gollum. They seem to be engaging with the world, while the rest are all caught in what Fate has laid upon them. Indeed, I think it would be very easy to cut LOTR down to about half its length and lose nothing of the story.

Indeed, if it helps, Pullman spoke in NYC recently:
I'd say that the criticism that's sometimes leveled against Harry Potter is that it's too dualistic. And that the Dark Lord is so obviously evil. And JKR has said something like that. But Voldemort is, for a most part, a plot device. The real moral questions involve the secondary characters and the moral ambiguity of the false Moody and the Halfblood Prince. POA is often listed as readers favourite book in the series, and Voldemort makes no appearance at all. Indeed, it's the wrongly convicted murderer, the rat and the werewolf who all figure; characters that are either broken, conflicted or transformed.

BTW, I wouldn't worry too much about what one storyteller says about another. I hear the same thing from musicians and artists. The critique has more to do with explaining how they're creating the Fabric of their Universe than making a deliberate literary assessment. And, as much as I enjoy Tolkien, I can see what Pullman means when he calls it 'fancy spun candy'. For all it's conflicting creatures and cultures, Middle Earth is a very orthodox place.

Interesting that my husband and children were having a similar discussion after we saw The Golden Compass on Friday night.

My eldest, who has read Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series multiple times has a similar issue with Lord of the Rings. When I speak to her of reading it, she likes to quote the scene from Clerks II: (paraphrased) "Walking, walking, and more walking". In a way, it is very true that LOTR seems to be a walk through of the deeper issues, which doesn't give you an in-depth analysis of the motivations behind what is happening. My husband also mentioned to her, that although he agreed with her, that she should really try The Hobbit, because you really get good character development with Bilbo, and when he read LOTR, the instances in which Bilbo appears through the Series were like connecting up with an old and familiar friend again. He said that the continued interaction with Bilbo was what kept him reading through Return of the King.

Hmmm. I'm feeling like I need some definition of what Pullman feels Lewis is wrestling with (and that by extension the Dark Materials books wrestle with) that Tolkien is not. What are these questions with which Lewis and Pullman come to grips?

I sometimes feel that Tolkien is penalized for being hard to read. Once you've hung out with Merry and Pippin and Bilbo, the Silmarillion can feel like what Stephen King called it - a big lead balloon of a story. But this is largely an issue of narrative distance.

Narrative distance is one of the things that makes the Bible hard to read (and fascinating.) What was Abraham thinking and feeling as he prepared to sacrifice Isaac at God's direction? (What, for that matter, was God thinking and feeling?) We don't know - the story doesn't tell us. It's told from a great narrative distance, rather than from the perspective of one of the characters or even an omniscient narrator. We like the people who are easier to get close to - but the ancient stories that have come down to us demand more of us as readers, since so much more goes unsaid.

Tolkien begins LOTR at close range, and as the story progresses he slowly drifts upwards - the language gets more formal, and progresses to a biblical distance in the Silmarillion. Tolkien becomes increasingly demanding of us as readers and lots of people do drop by the wayside as the effort begins to feel less rewarding.

But just what IS it that Pullman doesn't think Tolkien engages with that Lewis does?

Thanks for the address, davidenglish - I'll forward the link for this thread to him. Wouldn't it be fun if he weighed in?

ETA: I wonder if perhaps he's talking about desire and sex? The whole "Lewis punishes Susan for wearing lipstick by denying her heaven" thing?

It's true: you won't find a lot about sex and morality in Tolkien. But for that matter, you don't find it in Lewis. One sentence about lipstick and boys. That's it. It can be read as a condemnation of Susan's emerging sexual expression (which seems to be where most of the cool modern Brit fantasists are) or as a condemnation of shallowness - particularly a self-imposed shallowness.

Perhaps it is a mixture of both, nowgirl. Sexuality is a very large part of female empowerment...so much so that it has been repressed in many cultures and times as being "evil". A man's strength might lay in his sword and in battle, but a woman can bring that same powerful man to his knees in her skills as a lover...this can be seen in countless fairy tales that employ the symbolism and allegory of "beauty taming the beast". Female sexuality has also been a conduit to man's experience of the Divine, which is hardly shallow. A misconception that equates (sexual) beauty with shallowness is actually a weapon that degrades women, as an attempt to minimize their power, and "put them in their place". In Narnia, it was fine to take up arms and make war (a male power trip) against a foe, but when Susan discovers the power that she always had within as a blossoming woman, her "innocence" is lost and makes her unworthy - because she becomes a danger to the tenuous hold of a battle won consciousness of The Divine.

If it only takes Love, what is the point in War?

In HDM, Mrs Coulter experiences religiously imposed guilt in her feelings for Asriel (who is not her husband) and she seeks to "right" her "wrong" by spearheading the committee that seeks to wipe out the threat that she feels led her down the "wrong" path. It doesn't matter if these children are being butchered and killed in the process - it is rationalized as being for their own good, or for the greater good. In a way, better to die an innocent, than risk true knowledge of who and what you really are.

Well, I think I can offer an opinion. Here is the lecture Pullman delivered at the University of East Anglia: Miss Goddard's Grave. It's a tour de force of Religious Education. And Pullman certainly quotes one of my favourite passages from Jane Austen.
Now, I never find the narrative of The Bible to be distant. Puzzling, yes. But never distant. Indeed, if The Bible was truly clear and concise in its morlal viewpoint, it would be a rather boring read. But it is not.

Consider Abraham & Isaac. The first thing we must realize is that, only in the last two centuries have we imagined Isaac to be a child when Abraham set off to sacrifice him. But for most of history he was thought to be somewhere between 25 and 35. And then there's the curious message of the story. What should astonish us more, That the Lord God demanded a human sacrifice or that the Lord God rejected it and substituted a ram. It is only if we play the scene out as a dumb show that it becomes perverse and inhuman. The moment we add words, ask questions, provide subtext and draw a moral we have transformed the story and given it human meaning. And the meaning is not fixed. The Bible provides us only with the story outline, every generation has to flesh it out.

Consider Susan Cooper. I find most of The Dark is Rising series to be tedious and boring. Mostly when we are dealing with the timeless Old Ones. Or whatever they're called. I dearly loved the two books about the real children: Under Sea, Over Stone and Greenwitch. They're considered the more childish of the series. And Greenwitch is flawed, but contains some wonderful images. But I find the other books deadly when time stops and Cooper waxes lyrical about the eternal. To me, absolutes are always lifeless.

Again, consider The Hobbit. What is lovely about that book is how flawed Bilbo and the dwarves are. Gimli, son of Gloin, is a real bore by comparison. Bilbo doesn't want to go on an adventure. The dwarves are anything but polite. The villains and foes that they meet have genuine lives beyond the story. (Even the three trolls have personalities that hook us in.) But we get too little of it in LOTR. Boromir could have been much more. And his final moments would have been even more brilliant had Tolkien not been signalling Boromir's potential perfidy from the very beginning at the Council of Elrond.

And our own JKR spares us the absolute villain. I was chastised by someone for saying that the Voldemort of DH was smaller and less intimidating than legend. But it's true. He's paranoid and insecure and acts like someone who feels his superiority depends on fear and knowing one or two tricks more than his rivals. It pleased me that Voldemort was defeated in the end by a lesson on wandlore and human loyalties.

Of course, Voldemort has always been downgraded to the human in the saga. He is a poor lonely boy who, instead of wanting a family, wanted to never need human contact again. And Jo's Gandalf turns out to have a broken family as the source of his moral strength. The line that divides a Dumbledore from a Voldemort proved to be razor thin.

I have enjoyed LOTR, but it's a pageant play. The characters do not live and breath but remain constant. Frodo and Sam are much the same at the end as they were at the beginning. What a contrast from Bilbo Baggins of The Hobbit! And I do not know if Tolkien ever meant for The Silmarillion to be published. It always seem odd to see the backstory material to a great story revealed as it always strikes me as the scraps and shavings that were cut from a great sculpture.

Now, in the Narnia books, there are some great characters who do face moral dilemmas. Edmund, of course, and then there's Eustace Scrubb. These characters do dreadful things and learn from them. It is by experience, from cause and effect, that we find our moral compass. And we can see that the first half of The Magician's Nephew is a brilliant moral discussion, while the last half is a hopeless muddle.

And, of course, we come again to the idea of what is the moral question. In Genesis 3, we have Adam, Eve, a talking snake and a forbidden fruit. It's the outline to a very good story. Told simply, Adam and Eve are children led astray by a naughty cousin and punished by Father. However, if we keep asking that pesky listener's question "Why?" we soon find we have to give up more of the story and make moral choices. Why is the fruit forbidden? Why does the snake want Eve to eat it? Why do they feel 'naked' suddenly? Where is Eden? Why can't they go back? Did the Lord God intend this to happen all along?

One of the things I enjoyed about Deathly Hallows was that Dumbledore left Harry with no plan whatsoever. "Destroy the Horcruxes and then go for Voldemort." Hardly a profound strategy. And the trio spend a great deal of camping time wondering what it all means. (I'm amused that readers thought too much time was spent in the woods.) But that's the difference between innocence and experience: the innocent feel there is a plan, the experienced know the plan is what we make of it all. Harry has to choose to believe. And the temptation of the Hallows for Harry was more profound than the temptation of the Ring was for Boromir.

And that's all I can say right now. I do go on.

To clarify Pullman's view of Narnia and LOTR, I offer the email interview with Peter Chattaway. There, Pullman says:Apparently, Pullman has only ever read the second Harry Potter book and so could not comment on the series.

It's a good interview. And certainly makes clear what Pullman believes.

I think the director Guillermo del Toro has some interesting thoughts on the questions you raised. His films, most notably Devil's Backbone Cronos and Pan's Labryrinths are influenced strongly by his love of fairytale and folklore as a child and into adulthood. In these two quotes below he discusses how important fantasy themes can be as a means through which one can approach the big questions.

"GdT: Yes, it's the difference between a parable and a pamphlet. A parable
discusses things that are relevant in the past, the future, and the
present—regardless of the outcome in the present. A pamphlet, on the other hand,
is completely concerned with affecting an outcome in the present, the most
immediate present. I would like to think that movies like this or The Devil's
Backbone or Cronos are definitely more parables than anything else. They try to
discuss things like immortality and death and truth and choice. Pan's Labyrinth
is definitely a movie in favor of disobedience. I really believe that in the
larger sense, not only today but at all times, you only find yourself when you
disobey. Disobedience is the beginning of responsibility, I think. "

Could that last statement not also apply to the HP series?

"GdT: Yes, I am. I think that once a Catholic, always a Catholic. You're
screwed, you know. I feel guilty 23 hours a day. I feel guilty even when
I'm sleeping. I've been through a few sessions of therapy. Yes, when I was
kid, and I told the therapist about a short film I wanted to do. The
expression on the face of the therapist, it cured me from going to therapy
for a long, long time. When I was a kid, I would get bored during the
sermons in church, except when they would read a parable. Parables were
interesting to me - I'd rather hear about the grain of mustard or the
talents than hear about this guy who walked on water. I was moved by
stories that taught you something and I think that parables and ideas
were, in the oldest ways, transmitted through tales about demons and
angels. And I think that's the way I like to talk about things.
MK: That's clearly the root of the fairytales that later influenced Pan's
Labyrinth. There was a book that came out at the turn of the last century
that stripped back the fairytales to their original sources. What was
that?
GdT: It was called The Science of Fairytale and it's a really interesting
19th century book that systematises - without a particular agenda, which
is what troubles me about the psychosexual or megamythic approaches to
mythology, which seemed to me to have an agenda; they needed to prove a
point. But this guy just did a really studious and thorough
systematisation of mythology from throughout the world, not just
fairytales but also oral traditions and the heroic narrative. It talks
about Inuit mythology and Indian mythology, from everywhere, and finds the
common thread, without the desire to prove that there is a single hero
with a thousand faces. It's more open than that.rdless of the outcome in the present."

I believe that one of the great pluses of fantasy fiction or the best types of fantasy films is that they can really create situations where one deals with that twilight zone between life and death, physical transformations into other species even, beasts that talk etc. that gives us a concrete situation that enables us to get a handle on such questions. Pullman's (spoiler alert) world of the dead in "The Amber Spyclass' was extraordinarily powerful, really made you think about the value of certain concepts of immortality. People who scoff at fantasy themes as mere escapism are entirely missing the point of the depth of what this genre is capable of. And sometimes I wonder where exactly is the borderline between realism and fantasy? I believe it can often be quite blurred. Take a novel like Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain". while in one sense the events are on the plane of realism, the ambience of the tuberculosis clinic high in the Swiss Alps where Hans Castorp finds himself for what Mann himself described as 'the seven magical years of fairytale" has a flavour of almost fantasy about it where the hero is confronted by the big ideas of love, mortality, relationship of body to mind, time and space that he would never have considered in the flatland of his native Hamburg. Even his journey from Landquart to Davos, while clearly a journey in the real world, has a distinct air of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters about it - a journey from a place of prosaic reality to a place where things are almost at the edge of just tipping over into the fantastical.

Okay, I see his point about everyone in LOTR understanding what is good and what is bad. But I'd argue that there's another layer in LOTR, a judgment layer, if you will, that the folks who are preoccupied with Doing Good face, and that's How Best To Do Good.

"We should seek a final end to this menace, even if we do not hope to make one," says Gandalf at the council. Would it be better to throw the Ring in the sea? It's a very intense moral judgment to make: take a risky course that offers the best outcome, or a less risky course that offers a less certain outcome.

Key points in the book are marked by such decisions: Frodo's choice to go on alone after Boromir's attack, Sam's decision to abandon Aragorn and instead seek Frodo with his own wits and feet, Aragorn's choice to go after Merry and Pippin rather than Frodo, Gandalf's choice to leave the battle to keep Denethor from murdering Faramir, Eowyn's choice to find love with Faramir, rather than wasting away over Aragorn, and Sam's choice to take the Ring and go on when he believes Frodo is dead. The series is riddled with people who have to make hard choices. Is there perhaps a bit of anti-Catholicism in Pullman's critique? (As a person who was raised Catholic but is no longer practicing myself, I wonder if perhaps he's throwing out the baby with the bathwater. There's nothing intrinsic to Catholicism that shuts down thought - only expression.)


So in Pullman's view the big questions are "Is there a God? Who is God? How will I recognize him? What must I do to be good?" I would argue Tolkien's focus is precisely the opposite. Yes, we all know what good is. But what is evil? What does it look like? How can I recognize it and vanquish it, small though I am? Tolkien's answer is complex. Anyone can become evil, even the great and the good, like Saruman, who fails the test, or Galadriel, who passes.

The Genesis story is an interesting one in this context. What does it have to say about the nature of evil? Does it consist of not doing as you're told? Of being a reptile or a woman? Of wanting%2

This topic was discussed within the Christian Symbolism thread, but let me try to apply those ideas within this context.

Most of the above mentioned instances show love and trust being chosen over evil - which can be defined as the absence of love.

Frodo chooses to go on alone because he realizes that the Ring brings out the worst in people, in efforts to possess the Ring for themselves, so he, because of love, goes on alone.

Because of love, Sam chooses to accompany Frodo, as well as being faithful (worthy of trust) to what he committed to at The Shire.

Aragorn trusted in that Frodo, being the Ringbearer, was the One who was capable of completing his own mission, and that his (Aragorn's) mission was upon another path...as the Future King, he must be willing to defend those who looked to him for leadership: Merry and Pippin - who are still childlike and need guidance.

There is no love in murder, and to prevent evil from gaining a foothold within the fortress of those who seek to wipe it out, ie. the Kingdom of the true king, Gandalf leaves the battle and fights a battle within the inner sanctum of its very walls, to prevent evil from finding a "back door" into its Core, which would corrupt it from inside.

Eowyn chooses love instead of living without it in a desire for someone who could never be "hers" completely.

One that wasn't mentioned here is when Gandalf sacrifices himself within Moria so that the others can move forward. He does this out of love, while he is being drawn down into the abyss. It is his love that is strong enough to get him through and transform him into Gandalf the White.

In the cases of Saruman and Galadrial, it seems to me more an issue of control. Seeking to control someone or a situation is not loving that circumstance. Responsibility is one thing, but there is no trust in seeking to control another person's actions or orchestrating a situation beyond what you are responsible for. Galadriel (and her people) are approaching the time when they are to move beyond the veil - their time in Middle Earth is rapidly ending. To seek the "ultimate power" in the form of the ring would extend their influence into a time which isn't theirs to have. She seems to realize this, while Saruman, on the other hand, knows that his is of a dying breed, yet still wants to hold on, and can't or doesn't want to relinquish it. Out of desire (not love), he seeks more control so that he will still have a place in Middle Earth - no matter what the consequences.

Desire in itself isn't an evil thing, but if its object is pursued towards one's own selfish interest, it is absent of love, or an evil expression of itself. If desire is shared in Love, it can become a path to Wisdom, which makes it a powerful agent of growth and self realization. One must be aware not to mistake the agency for the thing itself, and with that, Wisdom is born.

ETA: This is what I think the lesson is in the Garden of Eden story. Out of desire for something else (knowledge), Eve chose to share the fruits and of herself, not out of love for her beloved, but as the fruit of her desire.

Perhaps the imagery of evil isn't that of a snake, but of a worm, which needed Eve to bite the apple so that the worm could get nourishment directly from the core.

*bows to well-thought out arguments*

I have been fascinated by this discussion, especially since I've long seen/imagined that HP and LOTR share a common theme: "a choice between what is right and what is easy." Frodo, Sam, much like Harry, accept a burden to themselves in the hope of saving others. That willingness to risk self for no personal gain draws me in. In the case of LOTR, I often wondered if Tolkein was also considering soldiers during WWII. (There is so much history in LOTR that I don't think it can be reduced to only religious symbolism). There is heroism in the small, selfless actions. I think it unfair to dismiss Tolkein because of his Catholicism. Yes, these characters know what is right but how many completely submit themselves to that goal? I don't understand why questioning and searching for one's personal version of morality somehow is superior to the struggle to follow the path of righteousness.

I find Pullman's comments regarding the acceptable Protestantism of Lewis acceptable over Tolkein's Catholic obedience disingenous. He's originally from England which has a long history of Protestant intolerance towards Catholics. Perhaps his novels should be dismissed a defense of bigotry and intolerance?

Well, to be honest, they're all from England and each taught at Oxford. And, to be fair, Tolkien didn't think much of Lewis' Protestantism.

"I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature"

C.S. Lewis


I do think that LOTR has a purpose different from certainly HP and the Pullman books - he stated repeatedly that he was attempting to write a myth for the English - a heroic epic.

Thanks for the clarification davidenglish. I was trying to point to the fact that anti-Catholicism is more acceptable in the UK. Perhaps "institutionalized bigotry"? I think its interesting that efforts are being made to tone down Pullman's anti-christianity now that the books have become commercialized. In earlier interviews Pullman was quite outspoken against Christianity and in favor of atheism/agnosticism. Now, we see a softening of that stance. I love the comment "see the film or read the book first" sort of a "give me your money to see if I've offended you." Does anyone know if the film's revenues have been impacted by the religious protests? I do know that in the library where I work, many people have opted not to allow their children to read the books.

I read HDM and thought it was okay. I thought the series began to drag in the second book. I finished because I don't like to leave things unread (unless they're truly abysmal) not because I found the work compelling. It's intriguing that an author of middling sucess sets himself over others who have acheived much higher acclaim.

cobhome, you are right; Tolkein had a much grander goal for his books. That's the idea I was trying to convey when I said LOTR has so much more than a religious theme.

I am still baffled as to why sacrificing to follow a pre-ordered concept of morality is less worthy than the journey to develop one's own moral code. I think the opposite could be argued. If you are your own moral authority, you can set a very low standard in order to define yourself as good. Your ends can be very self-serving. Lyra's character, for all her heroics, is self-serving; she must fight to protect her own life. By contrast, Harry and Frodo (even the Pevensies) take up a battle that may end their lives but will benefit others. They are battling evil because it is not because they stand to gain. In fact, Harry's moral development goes from trying to serve his own moral code (revenge, killing the bad guy) to serving a pre-determined code (die to save everyone else). He grows beyond the concepts in HDM.
*apologizes for misspelling, can't find dictionary*

Well, giving Lyra the benefit of the doubt, she is only 12 years old at the beginning of the books - I don't think she was even 13 before it ended. Harry had 7 years to prepare before his big battle with Voldemort (although each of the previous six years had its climatic encounter), while Lyra does a lot of growing up in a single year which is chock full of mini-encounters. I think real life is more like that for most of us - full of significant events that mold us, but go unrecognized for the most part and referred to as "growing pains". She wasn't entirely self-centered either...what child (or person for that matter) doesn't want adventure in their lives? She was brought up in an environment of theory rather than doing, yet she didn't head North until it was time for her to honor her word to Roger (in her saying she would come after him if he was taken by the Gobblers). Lyra might be a liar, but she is honorable.

When it comes to Narnia, to be perfectly honest, I never heard of it until my youngest sister (who went to a public school) started watching the BBC teleplays on PBS. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know they were adapted from books at the time. I went to Catholic schools through high school, and no C.S. Lewis work ever showed up on my reading lists - neither did LOTR for that matter. Believe me, I did a lot of reading. When Shadowlands was out in the theaters, I had no idea what the big deal was, until my husband said to me: "It is about the guy who wrote the books about The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe which L watched."

As for British epics, I hardly think there was a lack of them to fill a need in writing LOTR. Although I really enjoy LOTR, I far more appreciate the appendices! lol

I don't think that the point in writing books about the journey is an attempt to throw out "tried and true" morality standards. I do think that moral standards need to be re-evaluated from time to time, in order to adapt them to new knowledge and circumstances. If we didn't, issues such as slavery, women's rights, and racism would have never been brought to light and be seen for what they are. When you don't know why you do what you are doing, you are merely following the herd, living in ignorance and fostering that ignorance to progress into future generations.

Reminds me of that barnyard line from the movie "Babe". There were no such things as sheep-pigs, simply because that is the "way things are"!

Well, I must say something in defence of moral relativism. Not the "relativism" sneered at by true believers, but the more sophisticated philosophical point of view that absolutes are few and concrete examples must always bend to reality.

LOTR is a ripping yarn, a jolly good story. But it's only a story. Even though Tolkien was embarrassed by The Hobbit, that tale deals more with moral questions than his English epic. What keeps us reading LOTR is our desire to know what happens next. But there's never any doubt that the ring is evil, must be destroyed, and that Frodo will do his duty. (Stiff upperlip, eh, what?)

Now, when we look at something like HP or HDM, we find that there is some moral ambiguity. As we learn in DH, The Greater Good is the catch phrase of both sides. It's the Gott mit uns conundrum. Consider how many LL members are infatuated with the Malfoys and Snape and the Death Eaters?

Perhaps LOTR would have been more morally ambiguous if the One Ring were not so specifically evil. What if it was it's own master? What if it offered a different temptation to each wearer? Galadriel passes the test, but that doesn't stop her from being a somewhat frightening character. And who's to say what she'd have done had Sauron not been a threat when the Ring was offered?

What's interesting about HDM is that the bad guys sometimes look like good guys and the vice versa. Mrs Coulter is so delightfully evil, but she does have one of the great redemption scenes in literature. And isn't the General Oblation Board truly interested in the Greater Good? And Lyra's perception of things changes from chapter to chapter --almost as often as her daemon.

Again, if you go to Pullman's website, you'll find that it's the fundamentalist/evangelical Christians who denounce him. The Archibishop of Canterbury actually would like HDM taught in Religious Education classes. The movie is being boycotted by an American lay Catholic group, but Catholic bishops have actually endorsed it. Go figure!

But, consider what we've learn about JKR's beliefs. She thinks the soul survives, but said it would take six hours to explain her views. She goes to church, but doesn't agree with all the tenets of organized religion. She is very much what the Christian Right would call a "cafeteria Christian".

And then there's Pullman asking those BIG questions. What is the greater good? What is good? Good for whom? What is consciousness? What's authority? Is disobedience a sin? What is sin? What about sex? What about death? Is there life after death? What about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? And then there are those commandments prohibiting murder, theft and lying? And those commandments requiring duty to family, friends, country and religion?

English antipathy to Catholicism is ambiguous in itself. The Church of England has both High and Low divisions. One can be as Protestant as one wants or as Catholic. It's that guy in Rome that caused the big stir when Henry VIII wanted a divorce. And the Church in England lost much of its influence in the 19th Century. One might say that we can see in Jane Austen the true discussion of what is English morality: What is good, both public and private?

I just noticed that an earlier post of mine cuts off mysteriously well before I'd intended to end it. I think what I'd wanted to say there was along the lines of:

The biblical Genesis is a scary story to me, largely because I think the capacity to develop judgment is one of the most fundamental and best things about human beings, and the God of Genesis is essentially saying "Don't do it." So the part of Pullman's contribution that I value is the deep questioning of the Genesis story, the inversion.

The Silmarillion, however, looks at the Genesis story a little differently. The Elves are not expelled from Valimar, as Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden. Instead they leave of their own accord, wanting room to make creations of their own (and own them.) The Gods had called the Elves to live close to them in order to protect them better and share the pleasure of being alive together, and were grieved when the Elves refused their governance and left. In Tolkien, the Gods learn from this experience that the better way to interact with Elves (and Men, and Hobbits) is to become one of them - to enter mortal life on its terms, rather than to ask it to exist on Godlike terms. Thus Gandalf is the emissary of the Valar and is made mortal as the Valar's response to Sauron.

Now how is that not a powerful and creative re-imagining of Genesis? If Genesis actually read this way, I would be much more comfortable with it. Spun candy, my eye.

Of course, the other central story of Christianity is Christ's acceptance of crucifixion. Here it seems to me that everyone from Pullman to Tolkien to Susan Cooper and Lewis and JKR (and for that matter Jane Austen) are all in agreement: self sacrifice in service of others is good.

I guess that if I were asking a Big Question here it would be What is the nature of human consciousness? Is it good or bad? Why does its fundamental myth say it's bad? Must human consciousness be governed by rules and laws, or is it essential that consciousness, for its full development, reject rules and laws?

Pullman comes down heavily on the side of consciousness as good, and that the rule of law (or God, or the Authority) is intrinsically corrupt and must be rejected, as does Guillermo del Toro in the quote from an earlier post. Tolkien's answer is more ambiguous. Clearly he believes that consciousness and creativity are good, but he is much more concerned that built into them are a tendency toward self-destruction that must be countered by some sort of self-submission to God.

(As a side note, I think that some of the paralysis of the modern left can be described by saying that lefties believe in both positions simultaneously and to great conflict. If the authority is corrupt, it's not right to submit to it. But we long for an incorruptible authority to belong to, to facilitate the pleasure of being alive together.)

I think this is the crux of the matter, nowgirl.

Anything that a human can conceptualize is not infallible, including its consciousness of God. One of God's names is The Ineffable , which means that whatever it is, it is beyond human conception or comprehension - therefore any authority we give God is essentially human in design, which is subject to human fallibility in a never ending cycle. Emptying one's consciousness is likened to becoming One with God, not One of God. By sharing completely of Oneself...complete Love is realized, yet it is a state which is beyond the confines of explanation or definition, it can only be experienced.

Cafeteria Christian! I was trying to remember that expression earlier today.

momwitch, I am not questioning the character in the book as much as the motivation of the author. Pullman seems to say that developing ones own moral code is superior to following an established moral code. Rather than choose organized religion, it's better that you worhip at the church of momwitch. (I am referring to religious moral codes, not societal ones.) Pullman has created a character with a vested selfishness when pursuing her goal. Tolkein, Lewis and Rowling have created rather selfless characters.

In HP the greater good is really "better for us." It is more a rationalization not true beneficence. It is a sterling example of moral relativism (the sneering kind) that allows one to justify one's own selfish and harmful acts. Dumbledore is a great man because he acknowledges this truth about himself. He avoids power because he knows he cannot trust his own motivation/judgment.

nowgirl, I think the idea of choice in Genesis correlates well with the Elves story. Adam and Eve are given a choice - live in obedience in Eden or disobey and make your own way in the world. Although thoroughly Jewish, it is the cornerstone of much Christian dogma - "Father, Thy will be done." When Adam and Eve choose their own will over God's, they are setting themselves up as God's equals. Like the elves in Silmarillion, they choose the confines of their created world over God's world.

davidenglish, I do think there is some ambiguity about the Ring. Clearly, Boromir believes it can be used for good. Galadriel, too, is tempted to use the ring as a fair and kind ruler - for the greater good? Galadriel realizes that power can intoxicate, Boromir too. Frodo must resist the same temptation. Perhaps the ring is representative of the lure of moral relativism - It's bad when others use it but I will use it for good. Frodo's first uses of the ring are not evil but eventually he succumbs. It is not Frodo but Sam (and love) who destroys the ring. I find a great message/warning in LOTR and HP about how easily/unknowingly one can slide into evil and how difficult it can be to redeem onself. Compare that to Pullman's message that the world will be saved when the old, impotent notion of God dies and science triumphs.

I must research the Catholic view of this film. My Cardinal has spoken out strongly against the film. (I'm assuming my Catholicism is no surpise here.)

The problem again, from my perspective, is this yearning for certainty. I would not say that authority is corrupt or always corrupted. The truth is that Time doesn't stand still. People grow old. They come to feel entitled. They protect their own and behave like any "in" group.

It's not necessarily corruption, so much as human nature. Truth, justice and equality are big, abstract concepts that require saintly devotion. It is so much easier to seek justice and "equality" for those we know by name. And so we often take partisan sides in a dispute for no better reason than the other team threatens our status quo.

Take Tolkien. He was a fascist sympathizer. He was not a Nazi, but he admired the fascist movement and Franco in particular. On this issue he differed with Lewis who despised both fascism and communism. Indeed, Lewis biographer AN Wilson wrote:Campbell actually fought on the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War and Tolkien saw in him a model for Aragorn. In a letter to his son Christopher, Tolkien wrote:

(Frem here.)

Of course, we know from George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia that both the Fascists and the Stalinist Communists were wicked and evil. Still, it is hardly virtuous to side with Franco who lead a revolt against the democratically elected government and whose White Terror is acknowledged to have murdered three to eight times as many civilians as the Left's Red Terror.

Perhaps I was raised differently, but the crucifixion is not really a self-sacrifice. Not unless one is willing to entertain the idea that Jesus has a split personality. The idea that God kills himself can be profound. And that while Jesus is in Hell there is no God. But I don't know too many orthodox Christians who think that way.

Harry Potter follows his own naive code of morality. He does not embrace any societal ethic. And which of Dumbledore's "Greater Goods" are we to embrace? The one he found so tempting that he refused public office or the one that involved tolerance for all --including Slytherin House and the Malfoys.

As for Sam destroying the Ring, I must have a different edition of LOTR than you, wondering. In my copy, Frodo succumbs to the Ring's temptation and Gollum bites off Frodo's finger, ring and all. And so it is destroyed by Chance. Or Fate. Certainly not Sam. And it is simply a good turn to the tale. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be a matter of Choice or Free Will in the ending. It's a highly dramatic ending, but it makes for bad morality.

I do not see the Left as paralyzed. Authority is always relative and must forever prove itself. When Franco rebelled, he was offering an Absolute Authority against what he saw as the immorality of Democracy. Just as in the English Civil War and most revolutions, the suspension of Authority lead to atrocities committed by both sides. And each side claimed moral authority by pointing at the wickedness of the other.

But this problem with Authority always exists. There are still Americans who consider it a point of loyalty to deny that America ever illegally invaded Cambodia. And certainly this current administration doesn't torture, or does it? This is why the honesty and integrity of someone such as George Orwell is so important. Or Jessica Mitford. And why we can see in Harry Potter the Four Houses of Hogwarts and a society that has a government that is acted upon by the Death Eaters on one side and the Order of the Phoenix on the other. In truth, although the Order defends the rights of all, it does not represent society and only exists as a response to the injustice of the Death Eaters.

Well, The Golden Compass is getting a rough ride from Catholics. But I'm not sure why. The Church in the book is not the Catholic Church, but exists in a parallel universe where the Reformation never happened and humans are decidely different than they are in our world. I mean, bears talk! And everyone has a daemon! See this story where Bishops have rethought the matter and pulled the positive review. Sadly, I fear this fearmongering just proves what Pullman says about organized religion. They are more interested in fear than in love, more interested in control than in Free Will.

wondering


Ah, but why do you need organized religion if your own moral compass is one of ethical behavior?

Ethics is the "moral philosophy" of right and wrong, so a religion that acts ethically has an agreed upon definition of what is right or wrong. Ethics also concerns itself with the greater good. In an organization, this can cause far more damage because The Group creates the perception that The Greater Good benefits a larger number, which then becomes The Greater Good. There is power in numbers, and the more people who agree to follow a certain moral philosophy tend to find those who subscribe outside of that philosophy to be immoral. This also is used to justify actions which fall outside their own moral code, in an effort to comply with their ideal of The Greater Good.

Ethics also employs The Golden Rule as its moral barometer, which both Christian philosophy and Humanism concur:
From the Wiki on "Ethics"


To me, it seems that Pullman is telling us to not simply go with the crowd, because it is the "right" thing. Some people need more guidance than others, and for those people, organized religion might be just the thing they need. The problem arises when an organized religion assumes that all people who don't subscribe to their system are immoral, which is a direct contradiction of The Golden Rule. Having enough faith that people can generally make sound decisions by themselves , (provided the necessary information is available), can go a long way in making The Golden Rule shine like a beacon of hope, in the murky waters of Life.

Goodness. If I were Phillip Pullman, I'd be deeply disappointed if the Church didn't attack the book/movie - after all, his book is an attack on the traditional Church, and nothing is so frustrating to an attacker as being ignored! Pullman wrote a powerful fictional thesis and it's a sign of its power that it's raising hackles. (Perhaps, sadly, it's also a sign of the power of movies, since even as bestsellers the book seemed to fly under the right's radar.)

Now, davidenglish: my main point isn't that all authority is corrupt, or that the left is utterly quadriplegic (just Wedged in a Great Tightness, perhaps.) My main point is that Tolkien's work presents a no less valid Grappling With the Big Questions than Pullman's does. And believe me, I make no defenses for Tolkien's (or anyone's) facist sympathies. I've never thought much of his theory of good governance; as a democracy girl myself, I generally don't have much sympathy with dictatorships, however benevolent and well-pedigreed. All I'm out to say here is that I don't think Pullman's critique (that Tolkien does not Grapple while Lewis does) isn't supported by the texts.

And if we can't agree that Tolkien IS grappling, then I have to ask again: what is our operational definition of grappling? Perhaps that's the trouble. I still don't think Pullman's read enough Tolkien to support his conclusion. (And if he has, why does he think Tolkien's Valar don't measure up to Lewis's Aslan and his own Authority as an articulation of a viewpoint toward religion?)

I think it may be important to say that the Grappling I see all three of them doing is as artists, rather than as practitioners of their own personal belief systems (which I'm not especially interested in, except as they help illuminate the art.) There's my own bias on the table.

That's interesting. I always thought that Bilbo and Sam followed roughly the same character arc. They are, ostensibly, perfect examples of their type: Bilbo the image of stolid respectability, Sam the quintessential faithful servant, whose socially acceptable facades are undercut from the very beginning by a streak of romanticism. Bilbo's inconvenient 'Tookishness' makes an appearance in the very first chapter: he is fond of flowers, and secretly believes that life was more interesting when Gandalf was about, making trouble. Sam has a taste for folklore, and a desire to see an elf. They are problem solvers, making up for their short stature through use of their wits. They are spider-slayers and unexpected poets. Though faithful friends, they each take a precious object from a friend in service to the greater good.

Through their trials, they are forced by circumstances to redefine themselves. Bilbo has the identity of 'the Burglar' thrust upon him by Gandalf and the dwarves, and struggles throughout the novel to meet his companions' expectations. His acquisition of the Ring midway through the novel reshapes him; thereafter his efforts as a trickster figure are much more successful than his bungled attempts at dealing with the trolls, partially because there's nothing like invisibility for boosting one's confidence, partially because he is learning from his experiences. Sam, in Shelob's Lair, is forced to redefine himself as the last member of the Fellowship of the Ring; previously, he thought of himself as there only to take care of Frodo. His acquisition of the Ring reshapes him. He did not, though he had heard almost everything Frodo heard-- Gandalf's story, the Council of Elrond, Galadriel's alarming little performance-- understand why Galadriel refused Frodo's offer of the Ring. 'You'd make some folk pay for their dirty work,' he tells her, thinking of it, oddly, as Boromir does: as a tool that might be fittingly used by the right hands. He is more humble than Boromir, who dares to think that his hands might be the right ones, and so isn't tempted by it in the same way (poor Boromir. I am fond of him. He was magnificent on Caradhras. I just wish he'd thought to push Legolas off a cliff while they were up there. That would have more than made up for terrorising Frodo. Irritating creature, that elf). But he suffers the same flaw in his thinking. Nor could he quite comprehend Gollum, though he perceived the bond between him and Frodo. 'The two were in some way akin and not alien: they could reach one another's minds.' But Sam himself is an observer, cut off from both, until he takes his turn with the Ring.

In taking up the Ring he comes to understand both it and Gollum. The scene, on the slopes of Mount Doom, wherein Sam spares Gollum's life is strongly reminiscent of the scene in which Bilbo does so. It is an epiphany, following hard on the heels of a deeply murderous impulse: each contemplates the horror of Gollum's life in detail for the first time. 'A glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering,' thinks Bilbo. And Sam-- 'now dimly he guessed the agony of Gollum's shrivelled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace or relief ever in life again.' Though Sam doesn't destroy the Ring any more than Frodo does, he plays his part in Gollum's actions. Gollum is spared by all three Ringbearers, rejects their compassion and so goes into the fire. Moreover, Sam is the only person other than Bilbo to willingly pass the Ring on to another person. Certainly he didn't bear it anywhere near as long as Bilbo, and thus wasn't as bound to it, but he did relinquish it within Mordor itself, where the Ring is strongest, and with excellent excuses for keeping it. He comes to understand what the Ring is, and what it does to people. During the last part of the journey he is not only the leader of the expedition, handling such practicalities as food, water and passing companies of Orcs, but acts as Frodo's will, restraining him when he can't fight the Ring any longer.

He is the survivor of the Ringbearers because he bore it long enough to understand it, but not long enough to be scarred by it. He is changed by his experiences, and everybody notices but him: his countrymen's 'admiration and respect were given mostly to Mr Meriadoc and Mr Peregrin and (if Sam had known it) to himself.' Fond as he is of Frodo, and as the only one in the Shire capable of understanding what he suffered, he is primarily concerned that Frodo should get the credit due to him. He is kept hovering between his duty to the Shire and his family and his duty to Frodo, and that is part of why Frodo leaves, though a reason secondary to his own distress: 'Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be and to do... Your hands and your wits will be needed everywhere. You will be Mayor, of course, as long as you want to be, and the most famous gardener in history; and you will read things out of the Red Book, and keep alive the memory of the age that is gone, so that people will remember the Great Danger and so love their beloved land all the more.'

As Bilbo, returning from his adventures, discarded his respectability (though not the comfortable lifestyle associated with it) in becoming a poet and an elf-friend, looking beyond the borders of the Shire while still appreciating it as his home, so Sam progresses from the servant follower to the leader. 'Elves and Dragons! Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you. Don't go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you'll land in trouble too big for you,' Sam's father tells him. But Sam, though he never discards his cabbages and potatoes, grows equal to managing elves and dragons (well, spiders. Large, dangerous mythological things, anyway. Theoden managed the dragon). 'I hope my Sam's behaved hisself and given satisfaction?' The Gaffer asks Frodo, on their return. Given everything that's happened, the question is a bit absurd, and Frodo's answer is an effort to explain the magnitude of Sam's achievements. In becoming the master of Bag End he takes on the role played by Bilbo. Not alone, of course: Merry and Pippin look outwards as well.

Er. I blather. I just never thought of Sam as a static character.

Yes, momwitch that is the question: Do we need religion with its sins and virtues or do we decide our own? Pullman seems to lean toward decidng your own. This, of course, would allow you to justify any behavior. I once heard a Christian minister try to explain how men are justified in committing adultery. That was his personal moral compass. His religion, however, is clear on this subject - Thou shalt not commit adultery. History shows atrocities committed in the name of religion, often violating that very religion. This, however doesn't invalidate the religion itself. History also shows many examples, as you pointed out, of society allowing egregious behavior (slavery) because it was ethically acceptable.

Developing your own ethical/moral code allows freedom to commmit any act without repercussion. Having an existant moral code (ostensibly set down by God) means that everyone must play on the same pitch. My disagreement with Pullman is his dismissive attitude toward those who follow those religious dictates. Obedience, true submission is a choice. It is an enormous burden. Isn't it easier to develop your own code that allows you do do whatever you think is right? How do you set the parameters for right and wrong? Do you follow those of God or the dictum of the day?

There's about three separate threads going on here :-). Or perhaps at least two interpretive camps: the books-are-subordinate-to-religion folks and the religion-is-subordinate-to-books folks.

Maenad, that was one heck of a post. A very fun read indeed. I'd been thinking about taking issue with davidenglish on that as well but it's not central to my main tack, and I'm trying to stay focused. Tough to do on this thread, because so many good openings are thrown out:-).

I was so delighted to see Maenad's post and she did not disappoint. I am a big fan and always in awe of how you can toss off polished essays at the drop of a hat. Blather, indeed! We need more blather of that kind. And I concede entirely to your character assessment of Sam Gamgee. In truth, it was my carelessness to include his name.

And I agree that Sam and Bilbo have similar narrative arcs. And that's why I still find The Hobbit a more satisfying tale, because the character of Bilbo is front and centre, but Sam is given a supporting role that diffuses what development in his outlook we might glean with greater ease had he been less the faithful servant.

Well, I don't think raising hackles is his intent. Nor do I find HDM to be anti-Church propaganda. Pullman got along quite well with the Archbishop of Canterbury and his interpretation of the religious myths have been applauded by liberal theologians.
Well, I do like this term "grappling". And I would say that Tolkien does grapple. But it is not central to his tale. Of course, I don't see much meaning to the Valar=Aslan=God metaphor as it still leaves us asking Who is God and What does God mean?

Hillaire Belloc use to say that the great moral question was "What do you make of the Faith?" The question to me seems nonsensical. An atheist can be highly virtuous, while a devout Christian can be quite destructive. The difference between Grindelwald's Greater Good and Dumbledore's is razor thin. And the Torquemadas of the True Faith genuinely believe they are doing good and 'saving' souls by committing despicable crimes against the flesh.

And consider Harry's grappling with the fear of death in DH. He must come to terms with the fact that this is the same fear that led Tom Riddle to become Voldemort. Horcruxes or Hallows? It is the interesting twist to HP that both are rejected in the end. Might we see Horcruxes as being Organized Science and Hallows Organized Religion?
Well, I object to the idea that personal introspection allows the justification of any behaviour. Such nonsense! Religion does little to alter the equation. Having Ten Commandments has done nothing to stop murder, adultery, theft or perjury. And those concepts are not even unique to Judeo-Christianity. They can easily be seen as simply good manners.

The Church had members on both sides of the slavery debate, both capable of quoting scripture to bolster their case. And there are atrocities committed because of religion, not just in the name of it. There's a good deal of genocide and ethnic cleansing that goes on in the Torah under God's watchful eye.

Of course, even the Bible shows an evolution toward secularism. God speaks to his faithful quite a bit in the early Old Testament. But Job marks the last time he appears in person as God. Christians, who accept Jesus as an aspect of God, really only know him through his humanity. And the quarrel of the Early Church over the Law vs. Faith means that one pretty much does have to decide for oneself what is moral and what immoral.

Again, I object. The reason we live in a secular society is because there is no longer any such thing as an existent moral code set down by God. Even the Church didn't come up with its own legal code but borrowed the existent Roman one. Much of English Common Law predates Christianity.

And what if God is immoral? What if God commits a sin? Consider how Abraham talks God out of destroying Sodom if there are ten good men living there. It marks the evolution of God from the angry and vengeful god to one who is bound by moral reasoning.

Pullman does not invent his religious references. They preexist in history. His Lyra descends into Hades and leads the souls of the dead to Nirvana. Is she violating the dictates of the Church? Yes. But every moral leader has done that. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a religious document, it is a secular human one. And it marks the moral evolution of human society.

Generally speaking, Pullman's objection is to the religious dictum that there is only one True Faith. This is nonsense. One might find meaning in one faith, but it is bad manners to insist it is the only one that makes one moral, kind, tolerant, virtuous or loving. I have nodded blandly as various customers have told me all manner of bigoted stuff about another's race, religion or political party. Reason has no effect on these people. Indeed, feigned surprise at these views as if one had never heard such a thing is more likely to throw these bigots into self-doubt as they tend to live in a bubble, while reason is more likely to make them passionately irrational.

It takes all kinds to make a world. And one man's meat is another man's poison.
Hmmmmm. Well, the Bible is a book. The Bhagavad Gita is a book. The Lotus Sutra is a book. I'd say books are religion. "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God." We cannot escape a moral tale whether told about Jesus or Buddha or Krishna, or Frodo, Harry, Lucy or Lyra.

Well said, davidenglish. Religion is story; story is religion. But I'm thinking more of the point of view of the reader than of the "purpose" of the work.

I always feel that John Irving had a deep insight in The Cider House Rules about the power of focusing one's concentration on a single, challenging text. (When Melony steals the orphanage's one copy of Jane Eyre, the doctor fervently hopes she will "keep reading and reading it.") I have yet to meet a Book of Religion that doesn't richly reward study and deep thought and life-altering interpretation.

As I write, I realize that to some extent, LOTR is that fundamental text to me. I first read it in first grade and have been rereading every year or two ever since. Whether I like it or not (and mostly I do) LOTR has helped shape my mind and the way I approach life and books. I absolutely would not set up my ideal world the way Tolkien's is set up - my own Creation Myth would read very differently. I certainly don't use LOTR to guide my daily actions or to define my morality. But because I've engaged with it consistently at every stage of my growth as a person, it's woven into me nonetheless. And I find that, without trying to, I read it differently each time I start over.

So for me, religion is usually interesting as it helps me to explain things - how certain writers think, for example. And spending one's life in deep engagement with a religious (or indeed any great) text is something I strongly approve of. In Chaim Potok's marvellous book The Chosen, all the main characters are utterly engaged in the interpretation of the Torah. And while they are all fully and passionately Jewish, there is great diversity among their viewpoints about what it means to be Jewish - and the struggle is both painful and productive at every level. It's a paradox: the commitment to read, study and interpret a certain book throughout one's life delivers a kind of intellectual freedom that's not accessible in any other way, and the genuine study of a single text can lead different people in different directions.

But - show me a religious person who has ceased to struggle with their fundamental text, who knows exactly and finally what it means, and I start to get nervous. When a text is presumed to have its origin in God and to express God's mind clearly and completely, I start edging for the door.

So I suppose what I'm saying is that to me, the sacred thing is the mind of the writer and reader at work, rather than the book. The mind contains God, rather than vice versa. (And that really does it - now I'm never going to be able to run for President as a Republican.) But this is a belief I'm willing to defend (although I'm also willing to defend anyone's right to subordinate their own thinking to God's or the Church's, provided they're not trying to get me to submit too.) I suspect Pullman is willing to defend it as well, though I'm pleased and not surprised to hear he's found common ground with liberal theologians (who like a good go-round about the sacred texts as well as anyone, if not better.)

davidenglish, your key words are liberal theologians and secular society. However, if you are Catholic, like Tolkein, you are bound by certain truths. The laws of God are immutable, hence the criticism of the Catholic Church as failing to adapt to modern social thoughts/demands. One does not get to decide what is moral or immoral - one only gets to decide whether to choose morality (God's dictates) over man's. Has the church (every branch) failed at times? Yes. But man's failings don't change God's laws. Pullman's objection to Tolkein seems to stem from Tolkein's embracing that reality. Tolkein accepts that Catholicism does have the answers, the struggle, symoblized in LOTR, comes from whether to submit to those answers - to submit fully to God's will. (A moment to point out that I am not evangelizing. I am clarifying my argument as it relates to Pullman's dismissal of Tolkein. I am really centering this on an earlier question I posed: "Why does Pullman suppose that developing one's own moral code is superior to following a pre-ordained one?")

I do stand by my statement that freedom to develop one's own moral code can lead to justification for any action, a sort of easy virtue. It won't necessarily lead to that but it can. Not everyone will choose a set of virtues that challenges or betters them. Of course secular people can be paragons of virtue. So too can members of any religion be pernicious sinners. Religion does not guarantee that adherents will follow its tenents.

nowgirl, I agree that submission and belief must be voluntary acts. I think there is a fundamental difference between accepting an individual interpration of the text and accepting a long history of study and scholarship that leads to a particular interpretation (oragnized religion). I lack the training, time and, sadly, desire to devote my life to studying the Bible. Therefore, I accept the scholarship of those who have done. The struggle to live virtuously as defined by that scholarship- God's will versus my will- can be heroic. That is the reality that I think Pullman ignores.

davidenglish, as I said I am posting in regards to Pullman's problems with Catholicism. I would make some gentle corrections regarding Catholic beliefs. God cannot be immoral, nor can He sin. The Bible does not evolve towards secularism. Rather, the continued manifestation of the Divine invalidates the premise of free-will and faith. Jesus is not an aspect of God, He is God. Therefore, we know Him as both human and divine. Again, this is an FYI of basic doctrine rather than attempt to debate or convert.

Finally, I find Pullman's objection to the idea of one true faith ludicrous. Why, in the name of all that is holy, would anyone follow a religion if they didn't accept it as the correct ideology? That would be nonsensical! I do agree with nowgirl, however, that faith cannot and should not be forced.

Commenting first on Maenad's and David's posts regarding the character of Sam in LOTR:

I agree with the first statement which infers that Sam remains true to himself, therefore, he doesn't change all that much. Isn't it Gandalf that "renames" Sam, Samwise Gamgee, or is that his full, given name? Socrates was said by the Pythia to be the wisest man, "because he knows that he doesn't know". Sam is wise throughout the series, although his role is as a support person...he also takes upon all the traditionally female roles ("given" to Hermione in DH): preparing the food, making sure that Frodo was looked after - he is a mother to Frodo, who searches for Frodo, yet defers to him, allowing Frodo to make his own decisions regarding Gollum, though Sam's wisdom told him that Gollum was not to be trusted. Sam knew who he was there for, yet he is one of complete trust (in Frodo), not knowing what he was there for. He never abandons Frodo willingly, though he knew not where his devotion would bring him.

In this sense, the work is not dogmatically or popularly Christian or Catholic at all, since Christianity tells you that your faith and goodness will be rewarded after you die in Heaven, and "badness" an eternity in Hell. This makes Heaven the after death goal of nearly every Christian. Sam trusts with no expectations, yet, Sam's Heaven is back in the Shire with thoughts of Rosie and the life they might have had together; not something that is beyond his knowing (death). Sam's Heaven is present in living , echoing Jesus' words (not commandments): The Kingdom of Heaven is within.

wondering

Of course any developed moral code can lead to justification of any action, and this includes codes that have been traditionally adhered to for millenia. As I said before, if you can't explain why you do or not do something, it borders on laziness to defer to: "It is just the way things are". One thing that makes sense to me as a reason for evangalization movements, is that if you can bolster your own faith by "turning on" someone else to it, you can justify that what you believe is "right". "With God On Our Side" has been the motto of many a system that sought to justify its actions as being God's Ultimate and True Will, ie. "If it isn't so, why doesn't He stop us"? Perhaps He is just looking for us to realize that we have to solve our own problems, with the gifts that He gave us, but which often go unacknowledged and unrecognized as the gifts that they truly are.

One thing that struck me as very profound today was something my 12 year old daughter said regarding the uproar in the Catholic Church over The Golden Compass. She said that by condemning the books and movie, the Church is just proving themselves (no "help" from Pullman needed!) that It is just like The Magisterium. I was struck by the sparks of wisdom present in a pre-teen who is encouraged to think for herself, yet knows that she must conform and adapt herself to certain principles and standards. Does The Social Contract ring a bell?

True. But that makes the struggler utterly dependent on the quality of the scholarship, and hugely vulnerable to the scholars' biases. Deep study of any sacred text yields a diversity of interpretations, even among believers. What do you do when you have two scholars with a genuine disagreement?

I think that when you're committing to a personal creed - the expression of your deepest beliefs - there's no truly ethical shortcut to doing your own homework.

In addition to assuring yourself that the belief system you're making a commitment to is valid, I think that deep study of one's own religion (and of its critics) is the only way to become a rock-solid believer who isn't vulnerable to disillusionment. The Catholic faith lost a lot of practitioners in America following the revelations of predatory sexual behavior by priests. It takes a fully mature faith to survive such betrayals - and that kind of faith can't be taught. It has to be built from within.

And forgive me, but I'm going to quote a scene from the tv show The West Wing in full:

Exodus 21:7
"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go free as male slaves do."

"I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleaned the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?"

Exodus 35:2
"On six days work may be done, but the seventh day shall be sacred to you as the sabbath of complete rest to the LORD. Anyone who does work on that day shall be put to death."

"My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?"

Leviticus 11
"And the pig, which does indeed have hoofs and is cloven-footed, but does not chew the cud and is therefore unclean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their dead bodies you shall not touch; they are unclean for you."

"Here's one that's really important cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7 If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?

"Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

"Think about those questions, would you?"

Note: the above references are from The New American Bible Translated from the original Languages with Critical Use of All the Ancient Sources by Members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America Copyright 1970.

Very snarky, and I apologize for that, but shows the importance of wrestling with your sacred text on your own. And if your scholars aren't bringing some of these more controversial extracts to your attention, ask why not. And if you think it's okay not to pay attention to these lines, not to Grapple with them - why not? They're in your sacred text! How do you pick and choose which parts to live by? Aren't you then choosing your own morality?

ETA: Mods, please don't read this as an attack on religion! It's actually a plea for people to engage more fully with complex religious texts.

I think you were right the first time Nowgirl, there are three separate topics being discussed here; one discussing authors, one the stories they wrote, and one discussing the religious opinions that might have inspired them. I am only interested in the middle one.

Stories like LOTR have their greatest power when the author can be left out of them. I can believe that all Tolkien did was translate The Red Book of Westmarch from Hobittish into English and the book was actually written by Frodo Baggins. I know this is not true, but I can believe it anyway. Tolkien called this Secondary Belief and thought that Suspension of Disbelief (a term I think he also coined) is second best.

Calling this story "fancy spun candy" suggests a rather shallow reading of it to me because the characters in Frodo's world face many of the same moral challenges that we do in ours. What does one do when faced with a powerfull evil? Can you hide from it, or would it be better to fight, even with little hope of victory? Can evil be defeated using it's own tactics, or would the use of them make one evil? Is false hope better than no hope?

If Harry Potter was supposed to do something simular, then for me it has failed. Many of the questions provoked by this story are more along the line of how does this world functions than how the characters function in it. Dumbledore never explained why it was necessary for Harry to sacirfice himself. Is that what kept him alive, or was it his blood in Voldemort's body? Did his sacrifice have anything to do with the breaking of Voldemort's Silenencing Charms or the Body Bind curse he put on Neville? Some of these questions have been so intenesly debated in the Christian Symbolism thread that moderators had to repeatedly shut it down to tell people to chill out.

Of course they're mutable. They change over the course of the Bible. And it is human beings who decide what is moral or immoral, since they are the one's who decide what God has set down as law and what that law means. When one claims one must choose between the morality of God or the immorality of Man, one is simply stating a preference for which group of judges one wants sitting on the bench. But which scholars and how do you know, amongst the competing visions of scholarship, which one is God's Will. How is Pullman ignoring that? Why is Lyra not considered a Prophet? Wasn't her trip to the Underworld amazing? Aren't Mary Malone's observations profound? The Curia can change what is Orthodoxy to Heresy and vice versa at the drop of a galero.
Well, you might want to consult a priest about this doctrine. To say Jesus is God without the qualifing Mysteries sounds dangerously like Calvinism. He is and is not. And, as for God being incapable of sin, I think it makes it difficult to read the Old Testament if one cannot accept that the Lord God is a Living God that can and does evolve. Or we can say that the Bible reflects our evolving perception of God. Either way the God of Genesis is different that the God of Job and that God is different from the God of the Gospels. The Bible, as conceived by the Church Fathers, is a single book --though certainly it was never thought as so by the Jews-- and the narrative arc is all about God's changing identity culminating in God becoming Man.
Ah, well, is this the dangerous dogma that saw Christianity try to enslave the world? They know best. The White Man's Burden? It is odd to talk of voluntarily submitting to a belief and then insist that it must be the correct ideology. That's silly. That's just reveals that one doesn't have much will power and needs the comfort of converting others. But why shouldn't one's neighbour be Hindu or Buddhist or Jewish or Muslim or Humanist? It's possible for several beliefs to be in one family. And I've worked in a predominately Asian neighbourhood and it is not unusual to find a Chinese family that attends Church, has a portrait of Buddha on the wall, and a small shrine to the three household gods in the kitchen.

One of the first things that the Church did when it became the Official Religion in the 4th Century was destroy all the holy books of the rival religions. And then the central committtee began destroying the books of rival Christian thinkers. Scholars are very active today in reconstructing these texts from the various apologetics or attacks by the Church Fathers that were preserved.

Of course, this kind of censorship is not meant to reveal God's Will or the Word, but to limit the possible interpretations. And that interpretation is usually the Will or Word of one or two scholars who think a bit too much of themselves.
Exactly, nowgirl. What Christianity lacks is a Talmudic tradition. That is a history of every scholar's viewpoint. There is a tale of two Rabbis disputing. Rabbi Eliezer calls for the walls of the temple to support his position and they begin to fall upon his rival, but Rabbi Joshua cries out "When Rabbis discuss the Torah, what right have you to interfer?" So the walls did not fall out of respect for Rabbi Joshua, but they did not return to their original position out of respect for Rabbi Eliezer. And so they remain to this day.

I think one thing that's missing in many people's lives is communion. That is a coming together to discuss a common text. That's why LL is so wonderful. And why so much that is powerful about Judaism or Christianity is that the core text have no definitive answer. (A great deal of dogma is outside canon.)
Exactly. I have often posted a link in political threads to the Rev. Cheri Dinovo's sermon of homosexuality where she argues that the Bible is not anti-homosexual. Her interpretation involves grappling with the text and asking what does it all mean and has it always been thought to mean what we think it means.

I find Pullman an intensely moral writer. If he finds LOTR trivial, perhaps it's because Tolkien isn't grappling with questions that interest Pullman. (Mind you, Pullman only mentions LOTR. He says nothing of Tolkien's other writings.) There are things we find that trouble us and things that don't. And it's curious when what troubles us doesn't upset others and what we find settled unsettles others.

The idea that God is necessary for morality doesn't interest me at all. I find it nonsensical. Honesty, justice, kindness, decency and tolerance do not need a divine foundation to be followed. Those who have read Socrates will be familiar with the idea that something may be good in itself and that it isn't necessary to be threatened with divine punishment to seek what is good or virtuous.

Our attitudes to Harry, Lucy, Lyra and Frodo are often coloured by what we know about the authors' personal beliefs. But that's outside the work. And the outing of Dumbledore, either as Gay or Machiavellian, only proved how fickle some readers can be in their allegiance to the text. Many were disappointed in Snape's demise and that he did not have some amazing scene of redemption. But he wasn't really a nice guy. And his story is one of tragic loss and missed opportunity. He was a dead man walking throughout the series and we didn't know it. Harry represented all he loved and all he hated.

If one didn't know Pullman was an atheist, would one know it from the text of HDM? The books are steeped in the Bible and Paradise Lost. There are many references to Classical mythology and Christian theology. It seems to me by saying "He's an Atheist" one can dismiss whatever troubles one in the text. But that means that one hasn't fully committed oneself to reading the text, but has allowed an outside bias to be a filter.

Consider Heaven. We don't really know what Heaven is like from the Bible. The Jewish concept is far closer to the one that we find in Pullman. In Tolkien, it lies across the seas. Lewis simply falters at the concept and presents something that seems rather Sunday Schoolish. And Rowling leads us to Kings Cross, but won't let us board the train. We are left to grapple with what it all means. And what we are able to accept. Pullman finds the fact that Lewis killed all the children in a railway accident abhorrent. And yet there was a terrible railway accident shortly before Lewis wrote that ending and he may have been grappling with the problem of its pain.

BTW, "suspension of disbelief" was coined by Coleridge almost 200 years ago. And I think it's a good term. It captures the idea that we must commit to a text. And we must consider why we are troubled or dissatisfied with passages when we read it. Is the flaw in the text or in us? And can we explain why the text is flawed? When it is a novel such as HP, HDM, LOTR or Narnia, we can often explain flaws by pointing to the author's biography. With sacred texts, we sometimes need to look at shifting cultural settings. nowgirl's use of The West Wing was a classic example of how literalism can be absurd and that all texts must be seen as poetic. The meaning is not in the literal meaning of the words, but in their symbolic meaning. And what may seem like a flaw to us today may be a profundity tomorrow.

Depends on what the faiths claim. Not all faiths make claims about objective truths about the cosmos, and not all perceptions of faiths accept such claims at face value. Many people see faith as a way to deal with the world or a guidance tool, and it makes sense that different ones would suit different people, or even the same person at different times or situations.

Excellent discussion, everyone. Davidenglish, nowgirl, maenad: wonderful posts.

Inspired to post again. Nice work Nowgirl and Davidenglish!

Many great authors have said that you need to write what you know. In order to do this one needs to draw from their own personal experiences and their view point derived from these experiences. I think that all authors place their personal view points in their books (fiction or non-fiction) whether they intend to or not.

On the other side of this is the reader and what they take from or how they perceive the books. I have been in enough debates in the LL to know that not everyone has the same experience when reading the same book. With that in mind then Pullman being an atheist shouldn't matter and his stories would have no effect on a Christian's view of their faith.

And now the Authors: (Nowgirl is right about the 3 convos. All of which I find intriguing and one of which I will skip.)

Dorthey L. Sayers - Is a Christian author that has been left out of this conversation. She has not been mentioned in the Pullmen interviews, but Rowling does speak about her in a couple of interviews and has two untitled books of her in the links section of her website. Sayers wrote a series of Christian mysteries in order to found what she really wanted to do which was translate great Christian works (Dante's Divina Commedia and The Song of Roland). She was also good friends with C.S. Lewis and they toured together to speak about what it truely ment to be a Christian. I have not read any of her books so I am unable to comment any further.

C.S. Lewis - I have read The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, but I can't seem to bring myself to read the rest of The Chronicles of Narnia. It could be that I am not ready yet in my life's journey or that C.S. Lewis and I will just have to agree to disagree. I have never really given it much thought before. Yet the books remain on my bookshelf unread by myself.

Tolkein - OK, I'll admit I am a Geek, but the LOTR series was so much work to read! I guess I'm a lazy geek. Seriously, I am a visual reader. I have to picture everything I read in my minds eye. When the Fellowship was walk, walk, walking I was flip, flip, flipping to the map in order to achive this. Needless to say, I much preferred the movies. That came with sub-titles for the Elvish! And speaking of the movies the fact that Peter Jackson left very little of the books out of the movies I think speaks volumes about the books themselves.

I found the work I did in reading LOTR was well worth the effort! I came through the other end with a strength insided that I n