I haven't been too good at keeping up with my monthly book reviews from my book club.
I just finished reading "The Golden Compass". I was glad this book was chosen since I had read a lot about it but hadn't read it yet. As a fantasy book, it was an okay read. It left me with little desire to read books 2 & 3. The way it ended left me believing that only two of the characters will move on to the next book. Following the characters you've come to love is what makes fantasy series so appealing. So, believing that I've got to leave most of them behind (especially the armored bears) made me not get excited to keep reading the next books.
All the controversy around the book is the anti-Christian content. It was hard until the very end to discern who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.
Even now that the bad guys are labelled "the Church", it is hard for me to make the direct tie to the Church as we know it now. I'm told the connection becomes more clear in the later books. It seems like book one may be a set up for the later books, but not having read them, I can't really say.
So, over all, I'm not all that excited about The Golden Compass.
Stay tuned for next month's book which I got to choose: The Year of Living Biblically.
Ordinary thoughts from an Ordinary Guy
3 comments:
it uses all the different letters of the alphabet. it's what they use to demonstrate fonts so you can see very different letter in the font.
I'm so glad I (and Anthony and Jacob and David) read these books long before all the hype.
I know the author claims himself to be the "anti CS Lewis." I know he is an atheist. However, (and here I'm railing against all the hysteria out there in general) he is a good story teller, and I think these books give an excellent opportunity to DISCUSS issues with our children.
It seems many Christians have become so afraid of their own shadows that their children will be so sheltered when they become adults they won't be able to cope with ideas they come across in the world.
I've had so many emails forwarded to me warning that this movie is a lure to try to turn our children against God.
There's just something about conspiracy theories that turns me off immediately.
Dan had a good comment about all this while he was visiting us. The fact that the author is focused only on attacking Christianity lends credence to the reality and power of Christianity. Why does the author not denounce all religion?
I loved the first book - found it to be one I could not put down. I read it years ago and do not remember specifically which characters carry on and which do not, but more than two do show up in the second book.
I LOVED the first book. I very much enjoyed the second and eagerly awaited the third. I was extremely disappointed by the third. I think here he did have story-telling play second fiddle to some kind of agenda, which, of course, ruins any story, but if he was trying to send a message, I sure didn't get it.
WARNING - possible spoiler - it seemed in the third book everything was building to some climax in terms of a "Garden of Eden-type" choice. It seems that he was saying our choice FOR original sin was the right and good choice and that we were at a point where a choice needed to be made again. I kept waiting to see what happened, but I still have no idea where the choice was to have taken place or if it did or what it was.
Dan was reading this series while visiting us, so I kept asking him to let me know what he thought of the ending. He too could not figure out specifically what, if any, choice had been made.
The whole thing was disappointingly anticlimactic in the extreme - but I loved both of the first two books as stories. I have found the books and the first movie to be wonderful opportunities for conversation with my children, and I am beside myself with frustration at a Christian community that seems to be in hysterics and forwarding around emails about a conspiracy trying to suck our children into something that is going to cause them to disbelieve God.
If children get that message out of these books, they are VASTLY more perceptive readers than I am.
Furthermore:
1) I can't imagine a child at one in the same time BOTH intelligent enough to pick up what the author is saying and stupid enough to follow it blindly.
2) I wonder how many people that are frantically forwarding these emails have actually read the books and know what they are talking about.
3) This seems to me to be a wonderful media opportunity (as was The Passion of the Christ on the one hand and The Da Vinci Code on the other) to engage non-Christians in discussions about Christianity. What better opener could we have??
I see it as something not only parents but also the church can take advantage of to begin discussions and to help people discern fact from fiction and perhaps to learn the truth that will ultimately set them free.
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