[Milton-L] RE: Milton and Pullman

[Julia Guernsey-Shaw]

I find Pullman more troubling than boring. The trilogy is troubling in a way that makes me, like others, want to write about it as a commentary on or reaction against Milton. I have other subjects from pop. culture intriguing me as they relate to Milton as well, so I'm not sure that I will ever address Pullman formally. That said: 

1. We react to the sacrifice of Rodger much as William Empson reacts to the sacrifice of Christ; Pullman has brought into the fully human and temporal domain that which Christians accept when an atemporal metaphysical dimension is added. 

2. I'm not convinced that Asriel is ever meant to be all good or that his enemies are meant to be all bad. It seems to me that one central point is the Miltonic one that good and evil are not so easily sorted one from the other in this world (or any world on the same plain as in Pullman's multiverse) 

3. One of the most facinating aspects of Pullman as postmodernist commentator on Milton is the way he collapses Milton's multitemporal and/or metatemporal universe into a temporal multiverse. The only extra-temporal dimensions are the realms of Urizenic angels and the Sheol/Hades-like afterlife which is the Hell Lyra harrows. Perhaps the most disturbing scene in the trilogy is the one in which she frees the dead to die in an ecstasy of freedom rather than live forever in apathy. 

best, 
Julia Guernsey-Shaw 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Horace Jeffery Hodges" <jefferyhodges at yahoo.com> 
To: "John Milton Discussion List" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu> 
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 3:53:22 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central 
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] RE: Milton and Pullman 


You're not "alone in finding Pullman both shallow and sinister." Even worse, he can't tell a good story. 

In the mid-90s, I was sitting in a cafe in London reading book reviews in some newspaper and came across two reviews, one of Rowling and the other of Pullman. An excerpt from the latter's book aroused my curiosity, but I didn't actually read the series until around 2005, long after I'd read most of the Harry Potter series. 

I was greatly disappointed by the story's development in the Pullman's series. I started reading with high expectations, and the quality of his writing is certainly very good, but the story went nowhere. Even the writing seemed to falter in the latter book . . . but perhaps I was just getting bored. 

Like Professor Fleming, I was troubled by the "noble sacrifice" -- though there may have been an allusion to Christianity in that -- but whatever Pullman might have intended by that, and by the entire series, I finished reading him with a sense of letdown. 

In my opinion, he let his animus toward Christianity distort his story. 

Despite Pullman's literary gifts, which are considerable and far better than Rowlings', the latter tells a much better story that kept me interested to the very end. 

The 'noble sacrifice' in the Harry Potter series worked rather better, too. 

For anyone interested, I blogged on my reaction to Pullman back in 2005, soon after having finished him in disappointment: 

http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/2005/10/his-dark-materials.html 

Jeffery Hodges 


--- On Fri, 3/27/09, James Fleming <jfleming at sfu.ca> wrote: 



From: James Fleming <jfleming at sfu.ca> 
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] RE: Milton and Pullman 
To: "John Milton Discussion List" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu> 
Date: Friday, March 27, 2009, 2:59 PM 


Am I alone in finding Pullman both shallow and sinister? 

As far as I can tell, _The Golden Compass_ ends with Lord Asriel, the good-scary guy, murdering a child (Roger). This is presented as a noble sacrifice, allowing the great man to open up the heavens in defiance of an authoritarian God. 

A little _Brothers Karamazov_ rids us of this deed. 

JD Fleming 
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