Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v030.n099

From: Alice Turner <akt at attglobal.net>
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 18:43:29 +0000

Dan'l wrote:

> Au contraire: I am in fact too sophisticated _not_ to be offended
> by religious bigotry, whether it favors or disfavors mine own
> belief-system. I find, e.g., books like "This Present Darkness"
> quite as intolerable as, I suspect, I should find the Pullmans.

You might not find them so intolerable. He's not drum-beating, he's just
presenting the Gnostic PoV. Considering the millions of reams of printed
paper that have shored the other side, I think that's fair enough.
Interesting, too. And, man, does he do suspense well! That's the real
reason for reading these. Though not the only reason--he's not bad with
character. His villainess, Mrs. Coulter, starts out, you think, as a
fairly standard Morgan la Fay-type heavy, but she gets a lot more
complex as she goes along. And his boy and girl heroes are not quite
standard-issue either, especially the boy. That boy, you think at
several points, could grow up to be a thoroughly vicious man. Or not.

What is "This Present Darkness?" Is that one of those "Christian
best-sellers?" Did you read it? I'm gonna read one a them thangs one a
these days just outa curiosity.

-alga

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