C. S. Lewis vs. Philip Pullman

Cafe Society
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Suggested, of course, by the thread on Professor Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, which I would link to if I weren’t so freaking lazy.

As Pullman’s masterwork, the His Dark Materials materials, is pretty explicitly a response to the Chronicles, I think it might be interested to compare the two as authors. It may not be fair to compare the two series, as the CoN is aimed at children more directly than HDM is; the latter is only classified as a children’s story because of the age of its protagonists, and its tone, vocabulary, and meaning are a great deal more complex. A better comparison would be between HDM & Lewis’ Space trilogy, or, even better, Till We Have Face, which I consider the professor’s masterwork.

Anyway…

My own position on the two authors is complex. I read and loved the CoN as a child, and thus they have both nostalgic and artistic appeal to me. That said, I think Lewis wins as the better storyteller of the two. This is despite the fact that, as an atheist, I obviously find Pullman’s philosophical arguments more compelling. I am, again, thinking of Lewis’ entire oeuvre, not simply the books for which he is most famous.

I rate Lewis as highly as I do because of Till We Have Faces. Of all his books its the farthest from allegory, and it is the most subtle as well. It’s not a didactic Christian story in the sense that the Chronicles are. It is, rather, a story set in a universe in which Christianity is true. Orual is an intensely interesting and complex character, both sympathetic and deeply flawed; Lewis doesn’t blink at showing her bad side as well as her good, and her maturation as the plot progresses is not a simple growing closer to God, but entails a good deal of corruption, self-deception, and smidges of outright evil.

As for Pullman…

Well, I adore Northern Lights/The Golden Compass, the first book of the HDM trilogy. More than anything else I adore Lyra Silvertongue (nee Belacqua) the protagonist of that book, who strikes me as one of the most real little girls in fiction–charming and infuriating in equal part, brave and foolhardy, clever and foolish. If Northern Lights were a stand-alone novel, I’d rate it as highly as I do Faces.

But it’s not a stand-alone novel. It’s part of a trilogy that begins going off the rails in the second installment and crashes into the river, killing all aboard, in the third. In part it fails because of the series’ second protagonist, Will Parry, who, while interesting in himself, is not believable as a child; he’s basically a very young Jack Bauer. Moreover, Will’s badassery is accomplished largely by turning Lyra into a nitwit. In addition, I’d say that Pullman gets so into promoting his view of the world and in responding to parts of the CoN he doens’t like that he detracts from his story. His angels–even Metatron–aren’t credible villains. The subtle knife isn’t credible as a ultimate bad-ass weapon. (I found the sequenece in which Will uses the knife to back down Iorek Byrnison laughable. Yes, the knife can cut through anything–but Iorek is enormously larger, stronger, and faster. i couldn’t imagine him doing anything but taking the knife away from Will.)

I have some other issues, but I’ll wait to see if the thread gains any traction. Please don’t feel obliged to confine yourself to discussing the books I’ve already mentioned; any of the CoN are fair game, as are The Great Divorce, Pullman’s Sally Lockhart series, and so forth.

Anyone? Bueller?

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I suppose my opinion of His Dark Materials is roughly the same as yours, Skald, as addressed here and in other threads (like your We get that you hate that earlier writer. Stop kicking him, okay?). If the ending had lived up to the first volume or two, this would be one of the greatest works of fantasy ever, but I think it falls apart at the end, and I think that’s more because of than in spite of Pullman’s philosophical issues that he’s trying to get in there, that get in the way of what works as a story. (Although some people seem to have similar issues with the way Lewis ended Narnia in The Last Battle).

I’ve also read a couple of his Sally Lockheart books (well, listened to actually—Anton Lesser is a great narrator), and I thought they were enjoyable, though not great. The second, in particular, was very dark.

And so my impression is that Pullman has a much darker, gloomier, angrier outlook on life, and that this comes through in his books. Both writers have a strong moral sense, but Pullman seems more focused on hatred of evil, Lewis on love of good (though both are capable of skillfully portraying both good and evil).

As a writer, I much prefer Lewis, on the whole (though the Chronicles of Narnia, while I do like them, are neither my favorite Lewis nor my favorite fantasy). I love his wide range, his intelligence, his sense of humor, his clear and personal writing style. I also think Lewis may have been the better human being, though I don’t know as much about Pullman. But Lewis is the one I’d rather spend an afternoon with.

“Obviously”? Personally, there are some theistic and some atheistic arguments that I find far more compelling than others; agreement with the conclusion, or with the basic worldview of the one doing the arguing, doesn’t necessarily correlate with appreciation for the arguments. That said, to the extent that I’m aware of Pullman having arguments, and of trying to work them into his fiction, I don’t really find them all that compelling and I think that’s one of Pullman’s major flaws in my eyes. Which of his philosophical arguments do you find compelling?

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I know I’m in a minority, but I think HDM became better and better as the series progressed, and the end of the series was IMO brilliantly devastating. Not the final battle, but the protagonists’ final choice. I loved 'em.

I know that’s not particularly insightful. I’ll see if I can pull some insight out of somewhere later on.

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Yes, obviously. Pullman and I are both atheists; obviously I agree with him more frequently on matters of religion than I do Professor Lewish.

I like Lewis IN SPITE of the fact that I think his conclusions about ontology and ethics are crap. I find The Amber Spyglass to be bad art IN SPITE of the fact that I think Pullman is (story external) spot on about the existence of God.

I was imprecise. I should have written I share philosophical positions with Pullman. But he is best when he is not being didactic. In trying to present the overall Christian church as the primary mortal agent of evil, for instance, he creates a ridiculous and easily dismissed straw man by going out of his way to conflate Catholicism and Protestanism. There are genuine issues to be brought up against either (and Orthodoxy as well), but he gives his opponents an easy rhetorical out by creating such a chimerical opponent.

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Me too.

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I’m religious, but have pretty much the same opinion on the HDM trilogy as Skald. I loved the first book, liked the second, and was so disappointed by the third that I haven’t read them since. They sit there on my shelf and I don’t like to look at them, esp. the copy of The Amber Spyglass that I bought the day it came to the store. I really felt that Pullman warped his whole story with his insistence on hammering his message home.

I also have the Sally Lockhart books; while I enjoy a lot about them, I do feel that they suffer from his preachiness. Some Socialism is fine, but I thought he went overboard and dragged the story out of its timeframe, which was a disappointment; it pulls me right out of the story. I was particularly annoyed by the whole “sex, fire, death, baby” plot. The adventure parts are great, though. I loved the plague pit. Of the four, *The Tin Princess *is my favorite.

I’ve enjoyed the shorter Pullman stories very much.

I probably suffer from lack of perspective when it comes to Lewis; my mom is a hard-core fan (she belongs to the CSL Society, etc.) and I’ve grown up with all of his writings and his friends as well. So I’ve read most of his writings, some commentary, etc. and while he certainly wasn’t perfect, I think he was a pretty neat guy. To be honest The Discarded Image is one of my very favorite books, which is probably pretty weird of me.

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From an athiest POV Pullman ought to have read the first chapter of The Master and Margarita, and taken it to heart. In that book, a poet was attempting to write anti-Christian poetry, only to be told by his editor that he was missing the point - writing about how terrible Jesus was, filled with every fault, isn’t the issue - he ought to be writing that he didn’t exist at all. (Of course in that book the Devil personally descends on Moscow to prove the editor wrong, but that’s another story … ).

What I find odd in his series is that it is not “athiest” per se, but propose an alternative Gnostic-type religion in which there is a real afterlife, only it is a terrible place, etc. Essentially, committing the sort of fault of the poet above - making an inversion but not a negation of religion.

However, from a reading pleasure point of view, I quite enjoyed all of them. :slight_smile:

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Reread CoN with my gf’s little brother a few years back. I liked them when I was a kid, but they really didn’t hold up well when read as an adult. I don’t think its the rather over-the-top religious allegory, as while I’m an athiest I like plenty of books/movies with explicit or allegorical Christian themes (Indeed, the rather cheesy “we’re all star-stuff” philosophy of His Dark Materials bothered me more then Lewis’s Christianity), I guess I’ve just read enough better entries to the fantasy/fairy tale genre now that CoN doesn’t really impress.

I think the main problem with HDM was that Pullman wasn’t content just to make a response to the Narnia books, he felt he needed to present an alternate philosophy to Lewis’s, and that worked far less well then his send-ups of “muscular Christianity” in the first book.

Can anyone find Pullman’s essay on Narnia? I wanted to link to it, but my google-fu seems to be weak today.

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In my experienece, adults who like the CoN tend to be either strongly drawn to its religious nature or attached to it for nostalgic reasons. They don’t hold up for adult non-believers, because they are aimed quite squarely at children.

That’s not a criticism, by the way. 95% of all children’s literature (and everything else) is crap.

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Me three. Except that I though book two was just OK.

Even the 1st book is poorly written, it’s just that Pullman has created such an interesting world that it’s hard to notice the undercurrent of sophmoric writing skills and drum-beating. I mean-having your own Id as a pet and freind, armored intelligent polar bears, flying ships, steam-punk. Great world. Adequate story.

We notice this very strongly when taken out of that world or even after the shine has worn off.

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I’m a Christian. I think it’s inarguable that Pullman is the better descriptor (ETA: for reasons DrDeath sets out), at least by modern standards, or perhaps I should limit that to saying “at least in my opinion.” His world was far more interesting and more vivid than Lewis’s Narnia. That said, I agree that Lewis is the better storyteller. I also think – and I know some will disagree with this – that his books are not as heavy-handed in their religious element as Pullman’s are in his anti-religious elements.

I loved the Narnia books as a kid, but didn’t read Pullman’s books until I was an adult, so perhaps it’s just that I didn’t see the religion of Narnia as a kid, whereas I couldn’t miss the anti-religion of Pullman as an adult. But I really don’t think so; I think the Narnian books are less overt on that subject, and indeed if you ignore The Last Battle and are not aware of the (admittedly obvious) Christic parallels in The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, you could still read and enjoy the Narnia books. I don’t think you can miss or exerpt out the anti-religion in Pullman. He seems to me to be more obviously and forcefully pursuing an agenda than it seems like Lewis is. Obviously I know this is completely POV-dependent, but that’s mine.

As an adult, I find I like the Narnia books more or less for nostalgia reasons, and think if I first came to them as an adult I would not find them very interesting. (And The Last Battle I never liked, and like less as time goes on.)

Regarding Pullman, in line with what others have said: I really enjoyed the first book, sort of kind of enjoyed the second with buidling reservations, and loathed the third, not for its anti-religionism but because I thought it was a hot mess. I hated it so much I have no desire to re-read the trilogy, and no desire to read anything else he’s written. (If the Sally Lockheart books are good, let me know and I’ll re-think that.)

I guess the bottom line for me is that even as an adult, I still come back to Narnia. I never want to visit Pullman’s world again.

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Thirded. The ending stuck with me for a couple of days. I really enjoyed those books.

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Spot on? Perhaps in his personal views he actually presents the atheist case… but he sure doesn’t in HDM. All he does there is parody and caricature what he sees as the opposition.

That’s not insightful or convincing; it’s infantile. It’d be like holding a book about the Flying Spaghetti Monster as an example of an atheist book. It’s not.

Lewis, at least, managed to write about his topic (in allegory), instead of poorly mocking someone else’s topic.

Reading CoN left me with a better understanding of how some Christians regard their faith. Reading HDM left me thinking that some atheists are doody-heads. And that the second and third books were successively more fatally flawed.

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Um…did you see where I wrote “story-external”?

I agree with Pullman that there is no creator to the universe; there he is “spot-on.” But I also think that, if he wrote HDM to propound the view that the church is evil, he failed miserably because he created a straw man to oppose.

He goes off the rails very early–in Northern Lights, when he refers to Pope John Calvin, last patriarch of Rome, without giving any real explanation. Now I understand what he was doing: it was part of his world-building exercise. But anyone who recognzies the name “John Calvin” sees that Lyra’s world must have diverged from ours so very long ago that all similarities are akin to the resemblance between Earth and Venus. Pullman wanted (I think) to attack both Catholicism and Protestanism at the same time, to indict both as evil, but he gives his opponents too easy an out by merging them that way. Moreover, it’s probably impossible to do, because a recurreing feature of Christian denominations is to deny the “true” Christiaanity of their rivals.

And it wasn’t even necessary. Pullman makes it clear that his Holy Mother Church has at least two competing arms–the Magisterium and the Consistorial Court. He could have and should have presented the struggle between the two as being between, say, the Roman Catholic Church and Presbyterianism or some such, making clear that whatever protestant denomination he chose had become dominant over the others.

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Yes, but why are why are your views of the authors’ views coloring your opinions on their novels – when one of them doesn’t even state those views in his novel?

You like CoN in spite of Lewis’ conclusions – but those conclusions are part of CoN. You like it in spite of the parts that you don’t like.

You mislike “The Amber Spyglass” in spite of stuff that Pullman didn’t even put into the novel. You seem predisposed to have liked HDM because Pullman, himself, does not believe in a creator. Even though HDM never even discloses whether, in story, if there is a creator at all.

It’s just weird that you seem to think the author’s atheism should give him a pass when he’s written a book that makes what amounts to a gnostic argument instead of an atheist.

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Fourthed. I saw nothing wrong with *Spyglass *- the mulefa bits were especially interesting to me, but also the ending worked for me.

Just curious - how many here read the censored American version?

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Pullman does have the better descriptive talent, but unfortunately once the trilogy was over, it seemed to me that his world–which was so fascinating and great in Golden Compass–has serious problems built into it that eventually make it fall apart. I love the idea of daemons, until I think about it more and realize that he’s pretty much saying that you can’t change and you have no free will, which I disagree with. (For example servants all have dogs, IIRC, and what if, say, a person with a mouse daemon decides to learn to assert herself and grow a backbone? No dice, or what?)

It really makes me sad, because there’s so much to love in there, and yet I can’t stand to read it any more because of the flaws.

Narnia is different IMO–Lewis wasn’t trying such an ambitious and serious project, for one thing. He’s a lot more lighthearted about Narnia, I think. Still, he gets an amazing amount into the books–read Planet Narnia and see what you think.

I don’t think of Lewis as a professional fiction writer, I guess. He was sort of doing his own thing and experimenting, and so there’s this really weird Space Trilogy, which I love, but it’s obviously not supposed to be regular SF, not that SF was quite developed yet anyway at that point, but it just isn’t. Anyway I think of Lewis as a professor who happened to write some oddball but great stuff that I don’t expect to act according to modern ‘rules’ of fantasy, whereas Pullman is a professional writer and I expect different things from him, like a world that doesn’t fall apart when you look at it too closely (I guess he didn’t read Tolkien on that subject?), and I expect him to serve the story, not bend it out of shape to accommodate a Message.

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I guess I’m not sure. I’m an American. I read it. Did I read the “censored American version”?

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One issue which would come up is that the art of writing stories is quite different, and Pullman is much more “modern” and certainly more consistent than Lewis. Lewis was experimenting, and made some suprisingly grown-up children’s books, and surpringly (and excellent and enjoyable) childish grown-up’s books. They vary a lot in tone and style over his series.

That said, I have not read Pullman’s, and have no intention of doing so.

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I think you’re misunderstanding me. I don’t dislike The Amber Spyglassbecause of the stuff Pullman put into the novel (unless we expand the definition of “stuff” to include such intangibles as “plot coherence,” “credible villains,” and “characters who don’t change motivation at the drop of a hat” :wink: ). I commented on story-external things because they matter less than the execution of the the elements of the story.

Both HDM and CoN have long didactic stretches, and in both cases the didacticism is the weakest part of the story. Lewis weaves a better story overall, even though his material is weaker.