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Originally Posted by davem
I've already heard of HDM being removed from some school libraries - can we expect a boycott of the next book?
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Not in the UK. In fact the head of the church recommends that all schoolchildren read it!
Which brings me back to my point about it not being simple black/white fare. Pullman worked with some very ambiguous material from Blake and Milton, and raised some difficult questions, plus he threw a lot of theoretical physics into the mix. This is not standard blockbuster fantasy fare. It wears intellectual challenge on its sleeve, which is possibly why the Archbishop of Canterbury recommends it so highly - in contrast to the often dreary dull "Christian storybooks" (I read more than my share in childhood) His Dark Materials raises deep and important questions. It's more likely to have someone running to read their bible again than just about any other fantasy you can think of - including Lewis, who I didn't even twig onto as having any 'message' until I was told (that's what Neil Gaiman thought, too).
Incidentally, yes, I do think film audiences the world over are incapable of complex messages in films. Otherwise it would be Ingmar Bergman and Lars Von Trier films which topped the charts. And I'm broadly the same as anyone in that respect.
