Finished the Golden Compass

***Spoiler Alert***
-=Skip this message if you're planning to read any of these books and don't want to know what happens!=-

I've finished the first of three books in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy: The Golden Compass. If you've seen the movie, you haven't actually been exposed to everything in the first book. It is toward the end of the book that Pullman begins to reveal more what could be considered the true intended nature of this work.

At this point Lyra meets up with her uncle/father Lord Asriel and we learn more about his experiments with dust (and his true nature) - he isn't really as admirable as I had been led to think. It seems that this character is used by Pullman to exemplify people who consider all sorts of ecumenical reflections on the Bible and yet still come away with selfish, poisonous interpretations. If I'm to understand the intent of Pullman's words, knowing that he has been publicized (intentionally or otherwise) as both an atheist and a satanist, I might assume this is what he would consider to be the "best" result from trying to merge religion and science short of rejecting God and the Bible. Assuming we put aside this (IMO) flawed conclusion, I think there is much good to be derived from what he has brought to the table.

There are many people who read (or think they've studied) the Bible and use it to justify all sorts of awful things. It all comes down to interpretation. The beauty of having a tool like the Bible is that (with the exception of differing translations) it isn't really changing dramatically at this point - at least not like it was 1900 years ago. It can act as a kind of gestalt, against which we can see the true nature of a person or an organization. To come to the conclusion that the Bible itself (or the Koran, an astronomy book, the daily newspaper...) is evil would be a mistake. I'm not sure that this is what Pullman intends. I still have two more books to read in this series. We'll see...

What do you think?