Someone remind me...

I\'ve never read it, nor seen the movie, more to being a poor and busy young adult then anything else, so I\'m not completely for sure. I remember reading somewhere though something about the killing of God, the animal friends called daemons and other issues. But really I\'d have to read/watch the movie it to be sure. I\'m guessing that he knew exactly what he was doing (that he knew he would get some blacklash) and wanted the publicity for his books. Whats funny is what really ticked me off about it all was him talking about C.S. Lewis! I remember Pullman told an audience made up largely of children and young people that he had first read the Narnia books when he was a teacher. He added: \\"I realised that what he was up to was propaganda in the cause of the religion he believed in. It is monumentally disparaging of girls and women. It is blatantly racist. One girl was sent to hell because she was getting interested in clothes and boys.\\" This statement is not true at all about the books that C.S. wrote. He said a lot of other things that bashed the Narnia books, and all his statements were both untrue and hypocritical. He has also admitted to writing the book like the Narnia books, just \\"better\\". He seems a little too egotisical about himself!

Pullman is a rotten writer who created a \'story\' full of unsympathetic characters who are puppets for his peculiar brand of Anti-Catholic thinking.

I read the first book and threw it away. This was awhile ago so my recollection may be flawed, but as I recall, the main premise centered around an element called \\"dust\\" that pre-pubescent children seemed to attract. One of the characters had discovered that Dust seemed to give the ability to travel to other worlds and other dimentions. Adults don\'t attract dust and children stop when they grow up and their daemons stop being able to shift in form from one animal to another (apparently a sign of puberty). The parents of the main character are on opposing sides of the power struggle over dust and the young girl has some ability to read a compass that acts as a guide. The plot is quite confusing because there is no congruency in the beliefs that are laid out for each side. The mother seems to be on a mission to cut off the childhood attraction of dust by literally separating the daemons from the young children (a very painful and hateful process that the children consider a form of murder). She sees this ultimately as a way to protect them though it is not really clear from what... so she is set up as the enemy to children. She is also connected with the organized church (a loosely veiled reperesentation of the Roman Catholic Church). The Father is in the forefront of the Scientific community and his end game is unclear. Ultimately we find out that he is looking for a way to harness the power of the dust so adults can achieve travel to other dimensions. He does this in the end of the first book by basically murdering his daughters childhood friend in front of her eyes. (The little boy dies when he and his daemon are torn apart). So the reader is left, like the little girl, hopelessly confused about who to trust. Both parents seem to her to be unbearably violent, evil and untrustworthy. So she comes to the conclusion that she is on her own with the exception of some of the nonconvetional adults she has met along the way, her own childhood cohorts, the animals, the witches, and the daemons. I didn\'t read the second or third books, but apparently they touch on the existence of homosexual angelic beings and so on. I found the first book highly offensive and can\'t begin to imagine why anyone in there right mind would advocate them or describe them as remotely appropriate for children. My friend has read all three (she has young children) and she confirms that they are all strange and disturbing and not at all appropriate for children. Hope this sheds some light. If I have erred on some of the detail, forgive me, but I believe this is a fairly accurate description from memory.

I have also heard that the movie version of the first book was toned down on purpose so that people might think it was a bit like Lewis or Rowling and then allow their children to read the books which are, as AnnaChristine noted, blatantly anti-Christian, bad moral tales, and bad writing.

Thanks. We saw the movie...and have not seen or read the books. I have to admit, with the exception of the \\"demon\\" terminology, it seemed rather normal for a fantasy movie. And I don\'t know if it\'s just my admitted religious bias showing through, but my husband and I could both find ways to interpret the plot in a more decidedly \\"pro-religious\\" way. Didn\'t see anything about killing God. Can\'t say more or it would be a spoiler...my little boy liked the Ice Bears when we let him see it.

I avoided the movie because I didn\'t want to become curious enough to read the book(s). The trailer does seem dazzling, and there is enough of the innocent fantasy story presented to be palatable to everyone. I don\'t believe in contributing to public outcry for boycott, as it usually only draws more attention to that which is already ignorable. What\'s-his-name will make money off the story regardless of what we do. Let him make his living however he wishes. I don\'t discredit anybody\'s opinion about the movie, but it seems to me that the wisest thing to do is to avoid reading the books.

Here\'s an excellent and accurate layout of what\'s wrong with the stories: http://www.facingthechallenge.org/pp7.php Click on the links at the bottom of the first paragraphe to see explicit quotes on how he describes God and the Church. That ought to make clear what you see (if you, God forbid, have seen) in the film.

Well, I looked up the movie and it seemed to be all about demons and stuff.