The Republic of Heaven

http://www24.brinkster.com/menthapiperita/haunted.html

i got a cover scan up.

That picture of PP is really...um...interesting. Thanks for scanning the picture of the cover. How was the book?

it was good... the first bit was really dirty. but later, pullman brings up the idea of the angel sophia and this anglican priest's gnosticism...

the main character mathew cortez... i think pullman put a bit of himself into him. pullman's grandfather was an anglican priest, but pp still looked up to him and stuff. cortez's uncle is a priest, and while cortez stopped believing in god a long time ago (his parents are churchy either), he still goes to his uncle for guidance, discussions, et cetera.

Has anybody read Galatea? I believe that was his second book... I've only read the HDM ones... how is his other writing?

I've never read Galatea either, but I'd like to know what people think of it. I think the library here has a copy of it; I'll read it if it's any good. I've only read, in addition to HDM, the first two Sally Lockhart books. Those were really good, not quite as good as HDM, but I enjoyed them. They were well written, and very interesting stories, I thought. Especially if you like Victorian stuff, which I do. Oh, I also read the White Mercedes. That was alright, it was more of a modern mystery suspence type thing. The story was decent, if a bit predictable. The writing was fine, I guess. It was interesting, but not as impressive as his other works that I've read. And there is one sex scene that's sorta graphic. Not really, really horrible, and it didn't bother me, but I know some people didn't like that.

i really liked the white mercedes. i was a few years younger, so maybe i wasnt as good at judging the quality of writing, but i enjoyed it almost as much as HDM. and the first line was great..something like " chris marshall met the girl he was going to kill on a warm night in early june, when one of the colleges in Oxford was holding it summer ball."

There were parts of it that I thought were really great, and it was definitely enjoyable. I guess it was more of a light, quick, entertaining book (despite the subjcect matter) than HDM, for example. There really wasn't anything wrong with the writing, it just wasn't in the same category as HDM. I know, I know, I have to stop comparing things.

yah, i don't think any of his other books, or any other books in general for that matter, are comparable to his dark materials. there are books equal and/or higher in greatness, but nothing's comparable to it.

the sally lockhart books are good. i've only read the first and last of the trilogy though. the white mercedes was good, but it was different. i like his fairytales, esp. clockwork.

reasons why no one's read galatea... two printings, a first edition is now worth almost 1500 autographed.

the haunted storm was a good book, but it was his first novel, so it was a lot different from his other books. we do get to hear about the angel sophia and some beliefs and stuff.

If no-one else has read galatea, I think I'll have to give it a try. I just checked, and according to the website, the library here has it. I'm surprised it's worth that much. Probably the library copy isn't, but still...hmmm....maybe if I get it, I'll accidentally "lose" it. No, I wouldn't actually do that. I agree that nothing is really comparable to HDM. And in my opinion, not all that many books are as good or better, either.

don't accidently lose it. i had to make myself listen to my damned conscience and return the haunted storm.

Yeah, I won't actually steal it. I've never actually stolen from the library - that's too mean. Sometimes it's awfully tempting, though.

hehe, my plan was to try to buy it from the library 'cause no one read it... but it turned out someone else reserved it, so i couldn't even renew it or argue for it... damn.

Reserved to borrow or reserved to buy?

borrow

like a waiting list basically.

OMG Does anyone else see how much PP looks like Edgar Allan Poe? I'll have to get a hold of THS. What audience was he aiming at?

remember he wrote this way back when he had hair... early 70s...

got a hold of the book again... reread it... rerealised it's nothing like the writings of today's pullman. it's still plenty blasphemous, but lots more sexual content (not that there's any sex happening within the course of the book). the book's also kind of hard to understand (at least for me, my third time reading it)... not just in ideas... but it's seems... i donno, disorganised.

***disclaimer: i was reading this at really late, and while the information is accurate, i may not have understood it in context, and therefore don't overly trust my overview.

aussi... tired now, so the sentences might not make sense

[spoiler="the haunted storm, an overview-ish..."]matthew cortez... it's stormy outside, sexual (but not sex) encounter with elizabeth cole (but he doesn't know her name yet), who's talking the entire time about her lover (a facist, alan cortez, but no one knows that there's any connection). she leaves, he's haunted for the next few months (up to six i believe) until his mom suggests he visits uncle harry (his great uncle actually... on his mom's side... but they get along well), who's one of those travelling evangelical pastors (matthew cortez is not christian). so he's in town, his uncle's away pastor-ing, so matthew gets a sudden urge to go to church (he doesn't usually do this), and blah blah meets the anglican church's pastor canon thomas cole (elizabeth's father). cole talks gnostism.... elizabeth and matthew become (platonic) friends... both cut their hair really short (something about wanting to like like a skinhead)... become better friends (unrelated to hair-cutting).

one day, matthew and elizabeth are out to lunch and they encounter alan cortez, who elizabeth now recognises as matthew's brother. background family history, alan got kicked out when matthew was younger, 'cause everyone thought he was gay... it turned out he was just a racist an a facist, as matthew finds out after he gets over the shock of seeing his brother, and goes to lunch with him.

more history: elizabeth's father doesn't like alan because of his interest in a well of his, which alan wants for his facist party... the well's not really a well, but like a connection to this old mithraic <sp> temple.

even more background stuff: the first day matthew arrives, the people who take care of his uncle, one of them finds a girl from town murdered in the forest. there's another murder some time later. both times, matthew's in town but he doesn't remember what happened to him or where he was, the first time he felt sick, the second time i believe he was drunk. by the end of the book, i still haven't figured out who the murderer was, i'll have to read it slower.

by the end of the book, they four of them are all at the well, something to do with a midnight eclipse....[/spoiler]

i think i'll go read more now. i'm gonna try to scan the entire book while i still have it, so i might be able to post it up, after i figure out whether that's legal or not.

No, it isn't legal, so I wouldn't recommend it. If you do scan it for *personal* use, make sure you use an OCR program to interpret the text and output a text file. Saving each individual page as a picture file would be a nightmare.

(You probably know this already...)

<nods> what's an ocr program?

It looks at the picture, with the text, and figures out what the characters are and spaces and stuff and makes a text file out of it. (Pretty cool if you think about it. Pretty complicated too...if it were easy, we'd have robots driving our cars)

From my experience, it only works well if there aren't any weird characters thrown in...weird fonts aren't good either...