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[annundriel]

I am feeling low today. Low and moody and kind of ineffectual.

Plus, people are annoying. Dad's getting forwarded e-mails from people at out church about Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass that basically say, "If you're a responsible Christian, you will not see the movie or read the books." This is the sort of thing that is just guaranteed to piss me off.

I don't care if there are anti-religious themes, I plan on re-reading the first book AND seeing the movie.

Generally, I hate when things are just dismissed because they might make people uncomfortable.

Comments

[trademybike.livejournal.com]

I hate to say it, but I think a lot of times when certain groups - whether they're religious, or even individual people - are out of the spotlight for a short while, anything they can do to pop back into the spotlight, will be done. If anything has issues in it that clash with their beliefs or ideals, automatically it's the worst thing on the planet and you shouldn't support it in any way, shape or form. And one thing I really hated about college [and even college] was picking apart literature and reading between the lines. While symbolism is one thing, trying to find every reason behind the written lines just KILLS the fun of literature. Why can't so and so say *this* just because he felt like saying it? Well cause Mr. Author wouldn't have just written it "just 'cause." Everything has to have a reason. But can't it just be fun for kids or whoever it's aimed at?

[mandapanda0521.livejournal.com]

I didn't see that when I was reading The Golden Compass. Was I being an airhead and missed it? Or does it become more prevalent in the next two books?

[annundriel.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean. As much as I love discussing literature, there does come a time when you have to stop and go, "Maybe that banana is there because the author was hungry for a banana at the time. It doesn't have to mean blah blah some Freudian thing blah." You know? I mean it can be fun to read between the lines, but sometimes you can go too far.

Plus, I was telling my dad that with this book the thing that pisses me off is...give your children the benefit of the doubt! Kids can handle complex issues; they're not stupid. (Well. At least some of them.) So let the kids read something that's potentially going to make you uncomfortable and see how they handle it. Give them some credit. Book censoring is one of those things that makes me really mad at the world.

[annundriel.livejournal.com]

See, it's been too long since I read the book that I can barely remember! I vaguely remember some bad establishment with power and them needing to take it down (or something). All I could think was, "Hey, good idea. Evil people should be taken down." So I guess that translates into the Christian (specifically Catholic?) church being evil? I could see how you can say that this represents that and so on, but at the same time...Get over it and read it as fantasy. I bet kids aren't making the connection.

Anyway, I think that's what the problem is. Like I said, I'm having trouble remembering.

It's interesting that you've just read it fairly recently and didn't see any of it. I definitely need to re-read it now.

[mandapanda0521.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess it is anti-establishment, but that doesn't always translate into anti-religion. At least not for me anyway. Really someones message only has power you give to it. I just read it as a fantasy book, didn't really put too much into it.

I'll probably look for it in the next two books now that I've heard this though.