Word: pullmans
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...conceived “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” remake is Kidman and Craig’s appearance in the film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel “The Golden Compass,” opening worldwide today—and all because Pullman is a no-God-fearing atheist...
...Dark Materials--the phrase comes from Milton's Paradise Lost--takes place in a glinting, shadowy, clockwork version of Edwardian England, with some (very) notable differences. Every human in Pullman's world has a daemon, a kind of talking spirit-animal that goes wherever he or she goes. "They're able to talk to their daemons, much like talking to yourself," Pullman explains over breakfast at his publisher's offices in New York City. "Like having a conversation with your conscience or your memory." In Pullman's world, the church has evolved into a sinister totalitarian bureaucracy called the Magisterium...
...used to fantasy literature either warily skirting religion (as in J.K. Rowling's work) or subtextually stumping for it (as in C.S. Lewis'). We're not used to fantasy taking on religion foursquare. But to be fair, it's not religion that Pullman has a problem with, exactly, or religious believers; it's what happens when religion mixes with politics. "Religion is at its best when it is furthest from political power," he says. "The power to send armies to war, to rule every aspect of our lives, to tell us what to wear, what to think, what to read...
...Pullman sees himself as championing the universal human values of love and tolerance and curiosity, many of which are of course also embraced by Christianity, though not always, he argues, by Christian writers. Lewis' Narnia books arouse in him a level of outrage rarely witnessed during the breakfast hour. "His comments about women throughout are loathsome. His attitude to children who are fat and have freckles--for God's sake!" Pullman says. "I think Lewis was profoundly immoral when he wrote those books...
Atheism has had a best-selling moment of late with the success of books by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and Pullman runs the grave and improbable risk of becoming not just mainstream but fashionable. But he isn't a creature of fashion any more than he's a creature of Satan. "I'm a great admirer of both men," he says, "but I wouldn't want to be part of any movement that had an agenda. I'm not arguing a case. I'm not preaching a sermon. I'm not giving a lecture. I'm telling a story...