Subject: (urth) Pullman's Screed

From: David Lebling <dlebling at ucentric.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 14:13:23 +0000

(I previously sent this reply to the Whorl list by mistake, apologies to all
for that.)

On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, William Ansley wrote:

> And Pullman evidently regards the success of the first
> two volumes in the series to be a license to turns parts of the third book
> into a virulent anti-Catholic screed (thinly disguised but unmistakable).

Really? Anti-Christian, perhaps, but specifically anti-Catholic? Am I
misremembering, but in this universe, didn't John Calvin become pope? It
seems to me Pullman is mostly attacking the authoritarian streak that is
wide in many religions, including Calvinism and Catholicism.

And I wouldn't characterize it as even "thinly-disguised.".

    Dave Lebling
    aka vizcacha

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 22:36:37 +0000

>And I wouldn't characterize it as even "thinly-disguised.".

Yup, I was wrong.

I wrote too quickly based on already-fading memories (my poor, poor 
brain) which turned out to be even less reliable than usual.

I felt I should warn people on this list of a facet of the books that 
was potentially offensive; that was unnecessary. All of the people 
who post messages to this list are obviously too sophisticated to be 
offended by any such thing.

I was bothered enough to do so not because of the anti-religious 
message itself, but because of the vehemence with which Pullman 
presents it and because these books are putatively for children, who 
are likely, even in this day and age, to possess much less 
sophistication than those who write here.

William Ansley