I know you’re only referring to the first book here, and I’m guessing that the film has simplified things, too. Makes me more determined not to spend money on going to see it!

C.S. Lewis did a lot to sour me on the idea of organized religion in general and Christianity in particular at a very young age, so his religion-peddling backfired in my case. Of course, I’d been previously soured to it by picking up a children’s religious pamphlet on my neighbor’s kitchen table which had various things to say about children who didn’t believe in God, which certainly applied to me. The first was “Children who don’t believe in God are unhappy” and showed a little girl crying. Now, I was unhappy sometimes, so I thought this could apply to me, and what is perfect happiness anyway? I was perfectly willing to entertain the possiblity that kids who believed in God were happier than me. But the next page in the pamphlet stopped me cold: “Children who don’t believe in God don’t do well in school.”

I smelled bullshit. Great heaping piles of it, and I had the perfect scores on my spelling and math tests to prove it. So knowing that the statement was false, the only question was whether the people who wrote the pamphlet were liars or idiots, and I strongly suspected the former. So I asked my neighbor which it was, and whether she thought it was a good thing to put lies in a pamphlet to fool stupid children into believing in God. Or whether, more charitably, the people who wrote it were just stupid, so why should anyone believe them either?

I’m not certain what my neighbor’s response was but I think it was taking the pamphlet, actually reading what I was pointing out, and saying that she would discuss this with her pastor.

But this was my first encounter with religious people who lie to children because they think the kids are too dumb to catch on and that kids are unable to compare notes.

As for Pullman, peddling atheism strikes me as just as creepy as peddling Christianity, but mostly I think his Magisterium would make a more interesting villain if it had a bit more internal politics and infighting, rather than doing every creepy act with ruthless lockstep precision.

Sometimes it’s difficult to trace the things that influenced our thinking when we were young and open to suggestion. Things get internalized, pretty soon they’re part of our mental machinery. I certainly don’t think that one set of books is going to revolutionize the thinking of a child who does a lot of reading, but there are children who don’t read much and I have seen how much the things that they do read can impress them.

I know that a lot of people have this idea that children are these wise little souls who are difficult to fool. If that were true, parents would have a lot less to worry about, and predators would have a very hard time finding victims. I’ve worked a little with children in the schools, besides being the mother of four, and in my opinion children are eager little sponges, very willing to soak up the influences around them, particularly when those influences are attractively packaged. And what could be more attractive to an imaginative child than a fantasy novel?

I don’t remember enough from my reading of The Golden Compass to say whether Lois is right that Pullman’s books specifically are morally manipulative. (Although I have usually, in the past, found Lois’s opinions on things to be sound.) As I said before, my strongest impression of the book was that something was missing, something I thought would move me, that would draw me in. I’m simply arguing the principle that children can be and often are influenced by the books that they read.

It’s always interested me that when the author’s influence is supposed to be a good one, so many people are eager to get on board. (A little boy with cancer says that reading about Harry Potter’s woes and his ability to survive them has given him hope. General kudos for J. K. Rowling.) But when the influence is supposed to be bad there is general scoffing and the idea that someone is underestimating the intelligence of young readers. (Forget the dangerous message that the same author is sending out to abused children.) I’m simply saying that it can go both ways.

I have been, with my husband, to see the film since I wrote my first comments above, and he was struck quite forcibly by the agenda/philosophy of the Magisterium as shown on the screen, and came out muttering that they were “just like people here” (and it wasn’t a compliment!). And remember he was talking about a country that is over 50% Islamic and very authoritarian in outlook - “sit down and shut up; we’ll teach you what to think and believe.” My husband has never had contact with Christianity or Christian doctrine - of any type - at any meaningful level.

I thought his reaction, then, was exceedingly interesting.

The book was a disappointment, but I decided to see the movie on the strength of the trailer because it looked like it would have all the visual elements I love, and in that respect I was entirely satisfied.

And I read the book for similar reasons: because it looked like it had many, many story elements I would love. I didn’t know, then, that Pullman was pushing any philosophy or point of view, and it surprised me how little I liked the book, and how detached I felt from the characters and the action.
It just seemed sort of … empty. Later, when I knew more about Pullman’s ideas, I understood better what was missing. Where I had been looking for the heart of the story there was only an agenda.

I have to disagree with those who say children can’t be manipulated (morally or otherwise) by the things they read. The whole time they’re in school they have it dinned into their little heads that every time they read something they are supposed to learn something. If you look at their school assignments and their book reports this comes through very clearly.

If we look only at children’s literature, do we denigrate Oscar Wilde’s children’s stories for their messages? Wilde is reported to have written “The Happy Prince” and other tales as a reaction against the saccharine stories being told to Victorian children. They were to some extent supposed to be a parody of other offerings, yet they remain the most powerful, and memorable of any written at the time.

Are Pullman’s or Lewis’s works badly written? While I found the second & third Pullman books to loose focus a bit and as I have stated above, I personally didn’t like a couple of the Narnia books(that others have said were their favourites), both have been inconstant publication for long enough to reach the conclusion that they are good books. Perhaps it is because they are so well written we feel betrayed when we realise the trick.

Pullman doesn’t make any attempt to hide it or conceal it - and don’t all stories have a theme, something to say that is the whole purpose of a story? Surely all stories are morally manipulative? And it seems to me that if any attempt to discuss big ideas rationally in a story (rather than sneaking them in) is morally manipulative, than a lot of stories would be very dull indeed, sanitised and simplified and boring.

I don’t understand how the Dark Materials are more morally manipulative than, say, Harry Potter. But maybe I’m misunderstanding what people are meaning by that.

I haven’t seen the film, but the trailer has me screaming and hiding my head under the bedcovers. There was a review in the English Observer last Sunday which also made the Oliver cast point. The reviewer made it clear he hadn’t read the books and therefore judged the series on the film, misunderstanding quite a few essentials because of it.

Regarding Narnia, I didn’t get the religious bits for ages. I could read them as a child, but as an adult I find them difficult now, particularly the Last Battle, which was always my favourite as a child. The train crash explanation had me throwing the book out of the window in a blind fit of rage.

I think CS Lewis knew that a lot of people would turn away from the books once they figured our the underlying messages since he writes in the dedication to his Goddaughter

“You are already to old for fairy tales… But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from the shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it”

I can see the propaganda for what it is, ignore it, and devour the books for the things that caught my imagination before the initial disillusionment set in.