{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2676", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 2676, "subject": "Pullman cont'd", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2001-05-29T20:01:13+00:00", "last": "2001-05-29T20:01:13+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "akt at attglobal.net" }, "date": "2001-05-29T20:01:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Pullman cont'd", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, the use of Dark/Light imagery doesn't necessarily indicate\ninfluence\nfrom Manichaeanism--it's common enough. In fact, I don't recall\nnoticing\nany influence of Manichaeanism in particular, though there is Gnostic\ninfluence." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Dark/Light thing has been done to death in fantasy since Tolkien,\nbut not the way Mani did it, and not the way Pullman does it either. The\npart I am thinking of in Mani is the possibility of accretion of light\nparticles by the elect, which they can achieve by forsaking sex, meat\nand wrong-doing. *Matter,* of course, is \"dark.\" Children are naturally\n\"light\" (even Happy Burger-eating ones, I presume), but dark matter\n(here Dust) closes in with puberty. Men can escape it to a degree by\nright living (and following Mani), women hardly ever.\n\nPullman, the non-believer, is thus saying that this is junk. That matter\nis (and sex, and maybe the Happy Burger too--he certainly puts in a good\nword for whisky--yay!) worthy. That decency and kindness, not \"right\nliving\" are what count--that a witch, certainly in folklore on the Dark\nside, can be noble. (Or not.)\n\nBy putting a Prot in the papacy, he is, I think, doing just what Mani\ndid, which is to form a syntho-religion encompassing everything handy\nfor him, including relevant bits of Gnosticism and Manichaeism. It's\nneater for the plot. As I recall, it's the only religion on all these\nworlds, except for the witches' belief in the death goddess (the real\nFinnish death-goddess, slightly misspelled), but they're way out of the\nmainstream.\n\nThis is sort of an aside, but I would think a writer like Pullman, while\nimbibing his tot after a good day's work, must occasionally reflect on\nhis own role as Demiurge, creating worlds from the pleroma, peopling\nthem, and hoping that the Muse, or her daemon, will breath the divine\nspark into these people." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Other way around; the drawings were in the first two books, and the\nepigraphs in the third. There is a website,\nwww.geocities.com/the_golden_compass/index.html\nwhich has the epigraphs. It also has the covers to the UK editions of\nNL\nand SK, both the juvenile and adult editions (I quite like the adult\ncovers), but none of Pullman's drawings yet. From my cursory scan of\nthe\nepigraphs, I'd say they're interesting but don't settle anything (a\nnumber\nof them are drawn from the Blake poem at the start of TAS), but a\ncloser\nanalysis might reach a different conclusion." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks for this." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The separation between Lyra and Will has nothing to do with Original\nSin,\nsince the books reject the idea of Original Sin, as I've argued\nbefore.\n(Nor did the Gnostics believe in Original Sin as a yielding to\ntemptation;\nI'm surprised that you read the books as Gnostic books and still read\nthe\nending as you do.) And whether or not Lyra and Will have sex, they\ndefinitely \"fall\"; Lyra's bringing the fruit to Will's mouth, and his\naccepting it, make this clear." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Okay, I concede. I haven't reread even the second book all the way\nthrough yet, and didn't take notes the first time. But wrt Gnosticism,\nsee above re all-purpose syntho-religion. Pullman gives us a corrupted\nworld, a Gnostic world, it seems useful to say, especially as he seems\nso clearly concious of doing just that, and plops a barely pubescent\nAdam and Eve into it, lets them have a brief honeymoon (see, I\nconceded), then seperates them forever. Their coupling is somehow a\nsalvation, though I can't see quite how. (I'm suddenly reminded of Sev\nand Apheta conceiving the New Sun). I shouldn't have harped on Original\nSin; I guess I was just annoyed at the seeming pointlessness of it.\nDid you read his Liber Angelorum, up on the Random House site? I\ndouble-checked all his references in Davidson--the man has been doing\nhis research!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As far as I can tell, though, the Authority doesn't even shape the\nmaterial\nuniverse out of pre-existing, as the Demiurge did. Our universe came\ninto\nexistence by itself; the Authority just moved in and took over." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think Pullman wants to give religion even that much. He is bent\non sabotaging *all* religions, including Gnosticism, if we agree to call\nit a religion (to be useful)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I wasn't aware of that fact about Gnosticism, and it is an interesting\ncommonality. But for Pullman, humans are above angels not because\nthey\ncontain the divine pneuma, but because they are flesh. I would argue\nthat\nHDM is not Gnostic, although it's influenced by Gnosticism (of course,\nthe\nwaters are muddied by the fact that \"Gnosticism\" was not a term any of\nthe\npeople we think of as Gnostics ever used; it was applied by later\nhistorians.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, they are *matter.* Attracting Dust. This is Pullman's point, or one\nof them." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In the readerville discussion, Pullman says he personally doesn't\nbelieve in\nGod (message #65). And I, myself, don't recall any evidence of the\nAlien\nGod in the books." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, what I meant is if he were pressed in an interview--he has to be a\nbit cagey because of the repressive nature of juvenile publishing in the\nUS. He hasn't yet been pressed, by kids, at least." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Agreed that Lyra is not making a conscious choice between innocence\nand\nexperience, as it seems to me that Pullman's theme really requires." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But she" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "does make a sort of choice, in showing her love to Will by giving him\nthe\nfruit. And for the reasons I've given before, it is this choice which\nis\nthe cosmic choice she is destined to make." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Conceded, or at least on hold. But what about all that pushing and\nshoving by the adults?\n\nOne last thing: I saw in SFC today that His Dark Materials has been\noptioned, though we all know that doesn't mean much. If -The Amber\nSpyglass- beats the latest Harry Potter for some of the juvenile awards,\nwhich it might well, there's a shot, though. In one interview, Pullman\nsaid that his ideal Mrs. Coulter would be Nicole Kidman. Yes! Yes! Yes!\nI saw \"Moulin Rouge\" yesterday and kept getting distracted by the\nidea--she would be perfection. And what's nice is that she will continue\nto be perfection for, I would venture, the better part of two decades to\ncome, just in case there is a delay. If you Aussies have any influence,\nbeg her!\n\n(For those who care, MR is more silly fun than the critics have made it\nout to be.)\n\n-alga" } ] } ] }