are we passing the popcorn?
…in a childrens book part of the story is about castration and female circumcision…??
http://snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp
Read the examples and the Origin; anxious to hear what you guys think,
-Nellie
…in a childrens book part of the story is about castration and female circumcision…??
http://snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp
Read the examples and the Origin; anxious to hear what you guys think,
-Nellie
October 27th, 2007 at 12:45 am
That’s definitely intriguing. On a slightly off-topic note, it’s also interesting to note that it’s being released in theaters on the 66th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
~Jenna
October 27th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
NOTE: If you want to read these books or see the movie– SPOILER ALLERT
I just finished reading this trilogy over the summer. And I knew that people would be up in arms over the movie. They are anti-church, most obviously the organized Catholic church so people are going to be concerned. Parents should just read them first. But anyway:
They are pretty crazy. Lyra, the main character grows up in an alternate Universe in Oxford, spending her time roaming around the different colleges. [big emphasis on learning, writing, there is a golden compass with symbols!!!!!!] She has spent most of her life thinking she is an orphan but this shifts dramatically when the man she has thought was her uncle turns out to be her father. . . there are some fun issues there.
Each human in this world has a daemon, the physical representation of the soul, which manifests as an animal. These daemons are invisibly attached to you, as in if you go too far away from each other, it hurts desperately. Everyone’s daemon can shift animals while they are children, but the moment you become an adult the daemon picks an animal and sticks to it. [a type of mirror stage?!?]
Lyra learns to read these symbols on the compass with ease while mean of great learning must spend years of their lives studying the BOOKS that teach you how to read the compass. And why do you read “the Golden Compass?” Because you ask the compass a question by using the symbols with various depths of meaning and it reveals literal truth. The compass cannot be wrong.
Interestingly, Lyra looses the ability to read the compass with ease when she reaches “adulthood.”
I guess the circumcision that the man on the website is worried about comes from the storyline where some bad people are stealing children off the streets [who are called “gobblers” by the children, because they think they are getting “gobbled up” --some magical thinking for you] taken up north and split from their daemons–effectively severing them from their soul. Although it is possible to live after this most children die from the stress. They call this “cutting.” At one point Lyra is almost severed from her Daemon and I would think the description of that terror and fear would qualify as the real. THEN, Lyra has to voluntarily separate herself from her daemon so she can go to the underworld, that’s right, she has to basically experience death and then return from it.
Whoa, I can’t believe I didn’t think of these books earlier.
One character, Will, has lost his father [but has he?] and is forced to take care of his mother who we could classify as needing to be institutionalized [I don’t really know how to describe her condition] but I think you would call her autistic Dr. B. Will’s father has left some LETTERS that the mother keeps with her all the time and Will gets involved in the story because of these letters.
The books are a discussion about the transition from childhood to adulthood, the loss of innocence, the death of god, etc. And they talk about books and education and learning and all types of stuff.
Erin
October 27th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
oh and that should say “men” up there, not “mean”
October 27th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
It will be here on December 7, so I think I should arrange to reserve a row or two at the theater and we all go together as a class event.
I’ll buy popcorn and sodas.
Dr.B.