The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2) in What's the Name of That Book???

Jun 07, 2009 Porter rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm having a hard time matching up what I've heard about His Dark Materials with the two books that I've read so far. I don't see how it can be considered a serious critique of religion or how it's supposed to promote atheism.

Pullman is an atheist, sure. But this is not an atheistic story or world. It's very much subversive in that in the story The Authority/God is shown as being an evil oppressor. But you can't have someone be a lying bastard unless they exist.

Not only are souls very much real I'm having a hard time matching up what I've heard about His Dark Materials with the two books that I've read so far. I don't see how it can be considered a serious critique of religion or how it's supposed to promote atheism.

Pullman is an atheist, sure. But this is not an atheistic story or world. It's very much subversive in that in the story The Authority/God is shown as being an evil oppressor. But you can't have someone be a lying bastard unless they exist.

Not only are souls very much real in this universe, but on the world that Lyra comes from, they're even tangible. We're reminded of the reality of the character's souls on nearly every page.

Nowhere in these first two books have I seen a real critique of religion. If anything, it's a critique of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church, which doens't seem to have much relevance to religion today, even the Catholic church. In this world, the reformation appears to have never happened and as far as we can tell from the book, the church is more a political entity than anything else.

I haven't seen any evidence of any worship, genuine or false, in the books at all. Nobody goes to church. Nobody prays. Nobody believes. It doesn't paint religious people in a bad light because it doesn't have any, even the evil antagonist who works with the Church purely for political power.

The only critique against religion in general comes from one character. She says:
"For all of [the Church's:] history... it's tried to suppress and control every natural impulse. And when it can't control them, it cuts them out" "That's what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling".

The problem is, the books provide almost zero support for these statements. We see a handful of individuals literally cutting out other's souls and consciences, but that's it. This doesn't even rise to the level of a straw man any more than saying "Atheists are dorks and smell like poo."

Granted, all of this is just from reading the first two books. Perhaps the third book will be drastically different from the first two. ...more

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Apr 05, 2010 J. Trott rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Great story telling. I like Lyra's world enough not to want to read about the other ones- and as this trilogy goes onto to introduce our world, the world of Specters, and finally the world of the mulefa each world gets cornier.

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Dec 27, 2010 Erica Poole rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Amazing stuff, really start to see why it is considered controversial. Not sure I would classify this as young adult though...

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Mar 11, 2010 Lauren rated it liked it · review of another edition

Engaging but hardly subtle.

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Mar 25, 2012 Ray rated it liked it · review of another edition

I wasn't as enthralled with this entry into the series as I was with the first. The epic scale seemed reduced and the ideas less complex. Basically there was a lot of building of tension and "action" in this one. Still pretty cool and mostly not a disappointment.

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