Monday, September 29, 2008

Delighted To Be Banned

Philip Pullman is apparently delighted that his trilogy is one of the most challenged books of the year in America, with numerous calls having being made to pull His Dark Materials from libraries. He says in the Guardian :
Firstly, I had obviously annoyed a lot of censorious people, and secondly, any ban would provoke interested readers to move from the library, where they couldn't get hold of my novel, to the bookshops, where they could.
The trilogy was challenged over its religious viewpoint, which Pullman declares :
... the worst reason of the lot ... Religion grants its adherents malign,intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.
The Guardian blog asks would you ban any children's books and points out that Sarah Palin apparently actually once asked how she could go about getting books banned!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I can somewhat understand why people are rushing to ban Pullman's trilogy, because in the last book, God is shown as a feeble, senile old angel being carried away into the distance.

But banning the books, as with banning any books, shows weakness, not strength. It is a book, and a writer's vision. Nothing more, nothing less.

Allan Koay said...

i bet if given a chance, Pullman would ban religion.

stop talking cock, Philip Pullman.

Anonymous said...

Whatever reasoning he developed in his lifetime for hating God is entirely his choice. Just as people choose only to see their own good, and evil in things they disagree on.

However, having read his first book from the His Dark Materials trilogy I found his writing 'quite so good'. ;)

Anonymous said...

Er, Philip Pullman doesn't "hate" God. He just doesn't believe God exists.

-- Preeta

Anonymous said...

I don't think he wants to ban religion, he just wants religion to cease being used by people to:

-justify the banning of books or firebombing publishers;

-stifle creative and free thought;

- suppress minorities;

- dictate what one should wear or grow on the face, what to eat, how and who and the reasons to fuck;

- bring religion into the running of the state.


- Poppadumdum