[Roa_Aoife]

My picture is depressing? I encourage you to travel to Moscow and observe how these people pummel each other in the streets, especially if the weather is nice, or the grand way they embezzle money. My picture is realistic. Back in the Soviet Union, religion actually meant something to its clandestine followers. These days, most of it's been reduced to a platform for political posturing, something that I detest. Oh, there are people doing good together, even the slim inter-faith crowd that, for example, quietly runs shelters for thousands of trafficked women, but the overall situation is grim. This isn't a Rennaissance, it's more of a Dark Age with mobile phones.

I've been to Moscow and Ischefsk, a city at the base of the Ural Mountains which is far worse off than Moscow. I have friends who live in Ischefsk that I keep in contact with. I know exactly what it's like there. People don't pummel each other in the streets- they can't because soldiers with M16's are standing at each corner. And not everyone embezzles money because very few people happen to be in a position where they can do that. And political posturing in religion is something that takes place in any country where religion has sway over the people. Russia certainly isn't going to be immune to that. Yes, it's sad that it's used that way, but that doesn't mean everyone who claims to belong to each faith is a fraud. It's not a happy place, but it's getting better.

All of this is beside the point, however. I was using an anecdote as an analogy to present the idea that maybe Pullman does see more in Tolkien's works than he'd like us to think.

His attitude toward Tolkien doesn't sit well with me, but I agree with him more on Lewis, the man who denied a female character Salvation for cultivating an interest in "grown-up" things like stockings and the like. It seems odd to me that Pullman should reserve his harshest criticism for Tolkien, so far.

Actually, Susan wasn't exactly denied salvation. She didn't die in the train accident like the Friends of Narnia and their parents. She was traveling abroad in the states. Also, any denial had nothing to do with her liking grown-up things. It was because she lost her faith and stopped believing in Narnia, and more importantly, Aslan. The "grown-up things" were merely an analogy for this.

I think Pullman provides a serious attempt to suggest that children are not sentimental innocents, are not thoughtful or always considerate, are eager little creatures who are at the mercy of their desires and stimulations and who must through trial come to understand a moral stance.

*laughs* Anyone who works with children knows that…..