I'm not sure Pullman's anti-religious tone was any more pernicious than Lewis' Christian allegory, though.

I'm not sure Pullman's anti-religious tone was any more pernicious than Lewis' Christian allegory, though.

Yeah, that didn't ping me (in either Pullman or Lewis,) so I was kinda surprised by the reactions to them when I found 'em later. I tend to just sink into the author's mythologies when the story engages me.

I -- seriously -- didn't pick up on the Christ symbolism in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I first read it (at the age of 18).

I am sometimes dense.

I was a different age from when I read Narnia. But I found Pullman shrill and vicious, not something whose converse I remember from Lewis.

I read them all as an adult. Halfway through two, Pullman started to give me a tic. But the Narnia books rang with the sounds of anvils. Children or YAs probably wouldn't notice so much.

I didn't find Pullman's anti-religious tone too offensive. I saw it as an attack on institutions, not faith. I can relate to that.

I read the Narnia books as a child of church-going parents, and I pretty much had the symbolism pointed out to me as I read. Given my Christian background, I didn't mind that. I can imagine people of other faiths, or none, finding Lewis offensive at times.

Yeah, the Dwarves in Narnia struck as pretty obviously anti-semitic stereotypes. And I thought the whole anvil about comparing atheism to people who lived in a gaslit hole underground with pussycats and could not imagine a lion or the sun was pretty vicious.

I just read Prince Caspian with my mostly 5th grade book club. The nonchristians -- missed all the christian myths( or synbols if you prefer) . But --- and mostly because they are all Percy Jackson fans-- they picked out a bunch of the greek mtyths references. None of them recognized the wild ride. The only other one I have read in that series is LWW. I read it as a kid and never went further with the series. My plan is to read the rest of them, partly because the mixing of various mythologies is fascinating -

the Dwarves in Narnia struck as pretty obviously anti-semitic stereotypes.

Not to mention the... interesting representation of Islam.

The Last Battle also features a happy ending in which all the kids and their parents die in a train accident so that they can stay in Narnia forever. Oh, except Susan, who is presumably left to mourn her entire family as her punishment for liking boys.

That was my favorite of the series as a kid, but as an adult it's quite nasty for a variety of reasons. But then, I think I would have liked His Dark Materials more at 10 or so than I did as an adult. Particularly the first two books.