the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman

Lisa Schaffer-Doggett · 29 Nov 2004, 19:27 · from 2004-November.txt.gz

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From: harlekin at earthlink.net (Lisa Schaffer-Doggett)
Date: Mon Nov 29 19:27:27 2004
Subject: (urth) the problem with gaiman, mieville, and pullman
In-Reply-To: <1f76173704112911553b53139c at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <009AA52E-4288-11D9-948A-0003939CE29C at earthlink.net>


On Monday, November 29, 2004, at 11:55 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
>
>> I want to contrast Narnia with Pullman's His Dark Materials. I 
>> absolutely
>> loved the series, and waited the five years until the last book with
>> bated breath.  The Amber Spyglass which turned out to be nothing
>> more than a refuatation of Christianity.
>
> Well, I think there was a _bit_ more to it than that, but certainly I
> have to agree that the series turns into fairly blatant Gnostic 
> agitprop
> no later than the beginning of _TAS_. (Which makes it interesting
> read to read it against - he said, desperately dragging Wolfe into a
> discussion on the Urth list - the _Long Sun_ series, which I have
> argued is an instantiation of a Gnostic cosmology within the larger
> context of a Christian cosmology.)
>
>
Having just started the Wizard and having just read Pullman's trilogy I 
feel I can safely say that, as much as I dug the characters in HDM,  
Wolfe could have fit the entire story into two chapters of Long Sun.  
Of course he would have scattered it across four books, in pieces and 
allusions,  and we'd never be entirely sure who Lyra's parents were or 
that Iorek Byrnison was indeed a bear, but . . .   Well, never mind.

Don

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