His Dark Motives

I am by rule not a reader of much fiction, due to the amount of time I have spent in the past reading books which have neither offered me anaesthesia from my everyday existence nor have they enriched my knowledge or broadened my world view - time I could have spent playing video games. So if I ever read fiction, it is only on recommendation from trusted sources. The "His Dark Materials" trilogy was one of them.

Originally suspicious of the fact that it was part of the "kids books which grown ups can enjoy too" genre, and suspicious of the people who fuelled this genre, a genre which lacked any depth or any true narrative or thematic innovation, the easily accessible middle ground, which those who are too impatient or simple to read the high brow or too self conscious to allow themselves to enjoy the lowbrow, could embrace with differing degrees of public irony. O.K I admit it, I am only really talking about Harry P***er and maybe I am being unfair given its irritating ubquity, after all I found Mark Haddon's "Curious Incident ..." a worthwhile undertaking, as I also found "His Dark Materials" to be.





This dealt with the themes of Heaven, Hell, the plurality of worlds and the soul drawing on influences such as Milton, Dante and Dickens, in an original epic narrative which I found gripping and thought provoking to the extent ... that it turned me into an evangelist. I even signed up to the HisDarkMaterials.org fan site - not sure why, after all, like Groucho Marx, I had no intention of enriching this community of other extremist geeks that had signed to it - I guess I just wanted to show my appreciation for such a work of genius, something akin to being in a facebook group [but without having it on a profile no one hears you scream]. It offered a point of view on the notion of Christianity, the Christian Establishment and original sin, which for anyone reading, I won't spoil, but not necessarily favourable [Maybe this is why I liked it, that it would make the Daily Mail curtain twitchers splutter into their tea] So I was extremely excited by the fact that it was going to be turned into a Hollywood Blockbuster.






Boasting an A-List cast, it is being released this winter and the trailer also looked fairly impressive, seemingly remaining faithful to the first book of the trilogy. However after rooting around for more information, I found out to my dismay that this polished Hollywood version would not be taking on the potentially heretical issues central to the trilogy.

I can only assume that this was to appease the paymasters of New Line cinema and in a bid not to offend that mass of Red electoral states between the Blue eastern and western seaboards of the USA known collectively as "Jesus Land".

Maybe to a degree I am one of those those geeks, who not a fully blown "not as good as the book" Nazi, would still at least register inconsistencies, but this is not the case here - this is a full scale removal of the soul of this novel - the removal of edge and commentary which adds meaning to the action. This would just became an action movie with special effects. Imagine "A life of Brian" without the Christian dimension to it.

However I am also not a person that believes in intentionally inciting or provoking for sport, those people with deep seated views, but I believe that to produce this film in this castrated form, misses the entire point of the trilogy and this film becomes the fodder of the easily accessible middle brow I was talking about before.

Sure, the Passion of the Christ and the last temptation of Christ, incited discussion and debate, but this was good as we assess the role of religion in the post scientific state. Is this technically speaking, censorship? No fundamentally this is a social lobotomy, where the parts of our brain whose function is to challenge and therefore improve, are removed. This is the sacrifice of he key purpose of art, which is to provoke an emotional response- from Scorcese, to Tracey Emin to Jeff Koons. If it does not elicit a response it is just chewing gum - Karl Marx would be intrigued by how in todays age, the opium of the masses is manufactured through the removal of religion. My thoughts on The Satanic Verses and Theo Van Gogh are for another post. So I will not be watching The Golden Compass when it comes out this Christmas. Lets see how long my resistance lasts, but I swore once that I would never watch any sequal of the film "Highlander" as I knew that it would destroy the cherished memories I have of the original. To this day I have honoured that vow.