#Golden compass 2 banned series#

God as architect, wielding the golden compasses, by William Blake (left) and Jesus as geometer in a 13th-century medieval illuminated manuscript.

#Golden compass 2 banned series#

Pullman earlier proposed to name the series The Golden Compasses, also a reference to Paradise Lost, where they denote God's circle-drawing instrument used to establish and set the bounds of all creation: In The Subtle Knife, the dark matter studied by physicists in a fictional version of 'our world' is revealed to be the same thing as Dust, the mysterious substance central to the plot of the series. Pullman chose this particular phrase from Milton because it echoed the dark matter of astrophysics. Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while, His dark materials to create more Worlds, Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,īut all these in their pregnant causes mixtĬonfus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave, In The Amber Spyglass, all those and several other parallel worlds appear.

In The Subtle Knife, the story moves between the world of the first novel, our own world, and another world, the city of Cittàgazze. The Church (governed by the 'Magisterium', the same name as the authority of the Catholic Church) exerts a strong control over society and has some of the appearance and organisation of the Catholic Church, but one in which the centre of power had moved from Rome to Geneva, moved there by Pullman's fictional 'Pope John Calvin' ( Geneva was the home of the historical John Calvin). The dominant religion has parallels with Christianity. In Northern Lights, the story takes place in a world with some similarities to our own: dress-style resembles that of the UK's Edwardian era the technology does not include cars or fixed-wing aircraft, but zeppelins feature as a mode of transport. The trilogy takes place across a multiverse, moving between many parallel worlds. Main article: Locations in His Dark Materials Both are set in the same universe as Northern Lights. La Belle Sauvage, the first book in a new trilogy titled The Book of Dust, was published on 19 October 2017 the second book of the new trilogy, The Secret Commonwealth, was published in October 2019. Pullman followed the trilogy with three novellas set in the Northern Lights universe Lyra's Oxford (2003), Once Upon a Time in the North (2008), and Serpentine (2020). A HBO/BBC television series based on the novels commenced broadcast in November 2019. New Line Cinema released a film adaptation of Northern Lights, The Golden Compass, in 2007. The London Royal National Theatre staged a two-part adaptation of the trilogy in 2003–2004. The trilogy has attracted controversy for its criticism of religion.

It functions in part as a retelling and inversion of John Milton's epic Paradise Lost, with Pullman commending humanity for what Milton saw as its most tragic failing, original sin. The fantasy elements include witches and armoured polar bears the trilogy also alludes to concepts from physics, philosophy, and theology. Īlthough His Dark Materials has been marketed as young adult fiction, and the central characters are children, Pullman wrote with no target audience in mind. In 2003, the trilogy was ranked third on the BBC's The Big Read poll.

The novels have won a number of awards, including the Carnegie Medal in 1995 for Northern Lights and the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year for The Amber Spyglass. It follows the coming of age of two children, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as they wander through a series of parallel universes. OIF claims 513 cases where books were targeted for censorship, of which 74 were successfully banned or restricted.His Dark Materials is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman consisting of Northern Lights (1995 published as The Golden Compass in North America), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000). Oshkosh, Wisconsin - pulled from St John Neumann Middle School and Lourdes High School for 'anti-Christian messages.'Ģ008 - Mississauga, Ontario, Canada - retained but added a sticker that said 'representations of the church in this novel are purely fictional,' and don't reflect real Roman Catholic Church or Gospel of Jesus Christ Lubbock, Texas - Challenged at Shallowater Middle School for being anti-religious Winchester, Kentucky - Challenged because of childhood alcohol and drug (wine and poppy) consumption and anti-religious Halton, Ontario, Canada - trilogy was challenged at a Catholic school district that the books were 'written by an atheist where the characters and text are anti-God, anti-Catholic, and anti-religion,' pulled from public display be available for students who askĬalgary, Alberta, Canada - publicly funded Catholic school district removed then returned the books to shelves for anti-religious contentĪlamosa, Colorado - pulled then returned to shelves at Ortega Middle School for anti-religious content