Pullman's Screed

William Ansley · 26 Apr 2001, 22:36 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Pullman's Screed
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 22:36:37
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0345 at digest.urth.net>
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At 2:13 PM -0400 4/26/01, David Lebling wrote:
>
>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 b=
ook
>>  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.".

Yup, I was wrong.

I wrote too quickly based on already-fading memories (my poor, poor=20
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=20
was potentially offensive; that was unnecessary. All of the people=20
who post messages to this list are obviously too sophisticated to be=20
offended by any such thing.

I was bothered enough to do so not because of the anti-religious=20
message itself, but because of the vehemence with which Pullman=20
presents it and because these books are putatively for children, who=20
are likely, even in this day and age, to possess much less=20
sophistication than those who write here.

William Ansley

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