Pullman vs. Lewis DEATHMATCH!!!111one!!!

[rj_anderson]

There's been a lot of Lewis links and commentary on my f-list lately (including a very nice referral to my own essay on Susan in a recommendation of Andrew Rilstone's recent blog post about the same thing, for which I thank you, kalquessa). Most recently (and thanks to kalquessa yet again) there's this kinda cool article from The Chronicle addressing Pullman's charges against Lewis's Narnia, including sexism, racism, a pernicious belief in heavenly bliss, and lack of love.*

Which reminds me, the other day I found a quite hilarious book-a-minute-style summary of the Dark Materials trilogy by Abigail Nussbaum. Thanks yet again to kalquessa for reminding me where it was.

--
* Given the actual content of both series, the only thing I can imagine Pullman means by the latter is that in Lewis's universe twelve-year-olds do not have sex. I am sorry that we are not all as cool and enlightened as you are, Mr. Pullman. Some of us still think this is a little early.

Comments

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

Pullman is interesting to read, though he sometimes reminds me of certain quarters of the HP fandom in terms of strident dogmatism.

And his recent article in the UK Guardian against faith was offensive on so many levels. it was as if he misunderstood what part a believer's (in any faith)faith plays in them being who they are. He seems to ascribe it as something very superficial. He just doesn't get what faith means to the believer. That's his big problem.

He comes over as much more bigoted than Lewis ever did. I can re-read "The Last Battle" and largely take or leave the allegory (personally I enjoyed the allegory and spotting all the parrallels to Christian theology, when younger), whereas I found in the DM trilogy, the third became very tiresome and laboured as his anti-religion agenda seemed to take over the entire story. My view on his trilogy is "Loved the first, so-so with the second, was annoyed by the third."

Now, I loved the Chronicles, one through seven, and read the last chapter of seven: "Farewell to Shadowlands" with tears in my eyes.

Take that Pullman! - and that's from an agnostic.

[yunitsa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the article link. Philip Pullman is one of those people to want off your side - it's especially a shame since I think he'd be a very good writer if his politics didn't constantly interfere. Well, that and the twelve-year-old sex.

[cornfields.livejournal.com]

I re-read CoN recently, and was struck once again with how wrong I thought Pullman (and Rowling, for that matter) was in his assessment of the series. There was an abundance of love displayed in those books. I still get choked up thinking about Aslan giving himself to the Witch, and how the Witch's minions beat him and cut off his mane. I know it's supposed to represent the Passion, but it's also a wonderful parable for the power of love.

Thanks for the links. Very interesting reads. :)

[sreya.livejournal.com]

Oh, very awesome article, I'm going to have to bookmark this one. It wraps up some very good points about the Chronicles, and brings in some interesting commentary on Christian allegory in general.

I have to say, Pullman's been on my "to read" list for a while, but lately he's been slipping further and further down that list in priority. It drives me nuts when authors bash other authors like that.

[gramarye1971]

Thanks for the Rilstone link -- it's good to see an analysis of the Chronicles by someone who's actually read some of Lewis's other works. Especially The Screwtape Letters, which I'd say is a far more accurate reflection of Lewis's feelings toward modern society than anything he wrote about in the Chronicles.

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

The summary you mentioned may be the one here (http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2005/07/his-dark-materials-by-philip-pullman.html). Hilarious. I, too, was rather boggled by the lack-of-love charge. I, like you, assume that this is a product of the fact that Pullman does not actually understand love in any of its forms, whereas Lewis understood it in several, if not all, of its forms.

[cesario.livejournal.com]

Pullman reminds me of a good friend of mine, a professor at my school, who is an atheist and has been one his whole adult life. He believes that religion, and Christianity in particular, is a poisonous blight on the world, warping minds and emotions. He uses strident language to condemn Christianity, above what I think he really believes personally, for the sake of getting the message across. His greatest weakness, like Pullman's (as June points out) is not understanding what faith really means to the believer. He sees the effects of Christian fundamentalism on America and American politics at this present time and attributes the ugliness that has arisen to something intrinsic in Christianity and how it influences thought.

To which my response is, I don't see how a person who hasn't had faith *can* possibly understand what it really means, and that while Pullman's argument is severely off base in several points, I'm not sure he or anyone else who hasn't been there is capable of seeing the thing from the proper perspective.

Both those articles raised some interesting points, but this one in particular drew my attention (from the blog entry):

Rather, he thinks that the story allows us to to infer things about C.S Lewis's unconscious attitude to sex. This game - discovering feelings that writers didn't know they had on the basis of things they didn't say - is great fun, and anyone can play it.

I'm not saying that the particular psychological analysis he's lampooning is one I agree with. But this practice of psychological evaluation and inference based on biography---it's what we literature types *do*. It's what we're trained to do in school, and while the conclusions it generates can sometimes lead to flights of academic fancy, it doesn't mean that the subtext shouldn't always be taken seriously.

I don't agree that Susan was kicked out of Narnia for being an adult, sexual woman. I've always latched on to the line from that section where Polly says "I wish she *would* grow up." But there *are* to my mind troubling undercurrents to Lewis' portrayals of gender, across all his writing. Just because Lucy is his heroine, and Aravis is kick-butt, etc, it doesn't entirely negate the suggestion that he's sexist. Every misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, etc, knows one or two women, black people, Jews, etc, who are "all right" usually because "his" [woman/minority] abides within the social limits he thinks proper. Lucy is Lewis' perfect girl, so naturally he approves of her.

I don't think Lewis was any *more* misogynist than most men of his upbringing, social class, and era. But that doesn't mean he's *not* a misogynist. In fact, considering his time and era, it would have been almost impossible for him not to have been.

[serenasnape.livejournal.com]

12 year olds having sex? Yuck. I am more and more inclined NOT to read Pullman. He comes across as having too big a chip on his shoulder to write the books he could ... and I pity him for not seeming to have any understanding whatsoever of love.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

I lost interest in the Pullman trilogy after the first book; I'm not much of a believer and have no problem in principle with somebody writing a trilogy that's anti-religion. But the first book's subtleties and depth just seem to dissipate in the second, and I've not even cracked into the third.

I read the critique of Pullman's Lewis critique yesterday and thought it was pretty much dead-on. OTOH, I read a rather interesting article a couple of weeks ago talking about how the Narnia books were more Mithraic than Christian, and I thought that raised some strong points too.

[penwiper26.livejournal.com]

Deathmatch, hee.

Seeing as how Lewis is already dead, I think he can't possibly lose.

Have never been arsed to read Pullman because of all the various reviews above: agenda-driven fiction of all stripes tends to leave me cold, even if the writing shows talent.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I don't think much of Pullman, for obvious reasons, but I had something to say recently about his criticism of Lewis. http://www.livejournal.com/users/fpb/138154.html#cutid1. From what you guys say, perhaps I missed something, but honestly, I cannot be bothered to look him up. Life's too short to spend ten minutes of it reading Philip Pullman.

As for the Narnia books being Mithraist, please. In case you did not know, Lewis knew a lot more Classical stuff than I do - and I know a lot. He was the kind who could compose witty, inventive letters in Latin and tease his friends in Classical Greek. If he had wanted to make a Mithraistic fable, in the way that he rewrote the story of Psyche and the return of Helen to Sparta, he would have done so. This is someone trying to be clever at the expense of the obvious - and you can never pay too much attention to the obvious.

[dr-c.livejournal.com]

Both good essays-- thanks for the links, RJA. I'm starting to wonder how Pullman ever came to be taken seriously. I mean, twelve-year-old protagonists... did they seriously...? Even in secular society, I don't know too many people who wouldn't be squicked out by that....

Also: Apologies for the repeat mention, but since it's been a while, I should point out for any of your readers who haven't seen it before that Lewis did not condemn Susan to an eternal exclusion from Aslan's Country: "The books don't tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end -- in her own way." (Quoted here (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=936), among other places.)

(And poor Lasaraleen-- too interested in parties and invitations, and thus condemned by the author to fashionable life in Tashbaan....) :-)

A vote for and against Pullman

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I adore Pullman and the His Dark Materials trilogy, though rather more for their aesthetic gifts than their theological perspectives. I love his imagination, in inventing the alternate Oxford, the alethiometer, the daemons, the world of the polar bears; I love his characters, the wonderful Lyra, fierce Will, surprising Mrs. Coulter; I love his always knife-sharp and clean writing, even if I disagree about the uses to which he turns it; and I love his plotting, the reversals and tension and shimmering emotion. (The Pullman books are the only books besides HP where I have found myself literally shaking with the suspense of what I was reading.) All of his novels share these virtues, so if you dislike HDM, please don't give up on Pullman altogether -- the Sally Lockhart novels and CLOCKWORK and THE FIREWORK-MAKER'S DAUGHTER, among others, are great, enjoyable reads without the troublesome theological dimensions.

I also love the idea of Dust equalling dark matter equalling the dust from which Adam and Eve were formed equalling the adult consciousness that comes with puberty. Although the plot requirements and theological implications of this are troubling -- it means that despite their age, Lyra and Will *have* to have a sexual awakening both to fulfill the Eve parallel and to achieve adult consciousness (as Pullman sees sexuality as a part of that) -- I find it a fascinating and original thought about self-knowledge in both the Biblical story and adolescent development. (I also think they're thirteen or fourteen, not twelve, but again, I don't have my books to verify this -- and that's hardly better, I know.)

And I love (sorry to keep going on) the idea of the Republic of Heaven and the values it requires of its citizens -- which, as Lyra lists them at the end of SPYGLASS, come down to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Pullman certainly errs mightily in not seeing that these are values of the Kingdom of Heaven as well; but if he *must* choose to be violently atheist, I'm glad he provides a model in which the results on earth are the same! (There's a very interesting comparison to be made of the definition and uses of love in both Pullman and Lewis -- I don't know enough about the latter to make it, alas, but I'd be delighted to read it.)

But, on the other side, I always find it hypocritical of Pullman to accuse Lewis of sexism, because of the way Pullman himself steadily diminishes Lyra from the smart, strong, kick-butt protagonist of GOLDEN COMPASS to Will's adoring adjunct and handmaiden in AMBER SPYGLASS. If I recall aright (my books are on loan), as soon as Will is introduced, the alethiometer tells Lyra that she must abandon her quest and help him. While Will charges around having adventures in the first third of AMBER SPYGLASS, Lyra is held in a drugged sleep (nothing more passive than that). When she and Will fall in love at the end of the book, her beauty is noted far more than her other admirable qualities. And -- the thing I *really, really* hate -- in both AMBER SPYGLASS and the follow-up, LYRA'S OXFORD, Lyra thinks "What would Will do?" and how she must try to "be like Will," when in GOLDEN COMPASS she had more than enough imagination and bravery of her own.

So, as a rule, I don't think any author is perfect when judged by one's personal philosophical standards (unless that author has formed those standards in one, of course). But I try to love each one for the gifts they bring and the thoughts they inspire, recognize their limits, and set aside the rest.

Cheryl