A Murderer Was A Worthy Companion.

And Then What?" Said Her Daemon Sleepily. "build What?" "the Republic Of Heaven," Said Lyra.

The Moment In The Account Of Adam And Eve In The Book Of Genesis Is When They Realize They're Naked And Try And Cover Themselves With Fig Leaves. That Seemed To Me A Perfect Allegory Of What Happened In The 20th Century With Regard To Literary Modernism. Literary Modernism Grew Out Of A Sense That, “oh My God! I'm Telling A Story! Oh, That Can't Be The Case, Because I'm A Clever Person. I'm A Literary Person! What Am I Going To Do To Distinguish Myself?...a Lot Of Modernism Does Seem To Come Out Of A Fear Of Being Thought An Ordinary Storyteller.

The Justice Of It Seems To Children Correct And Right - I Mean, We Laugh At It! We Underestimate Children's Ability To Know What Is A Story And What Isn't.

I Don't See Any Sign Of God In This World, In The Place Where We Live And Things We Know. It Can All Be Explained To My Mind Perfectly Satisfactorily Without God. But In The Great Darkness Beyond This Little Spark Of Light Where I Live, Of Course There May Be All Kinds Of Things. There May Be A God. So I'm Really An Agnostic.

I Don't Expect Christians To See God As A Metaphor, But That's What He Is. Perhaps It Might Be Clearer To Call Him A Character In Fiction, And A Very Interesting One Too: One Of The Greatest And Most Complex Villains Of All - Savage, Petty, Boastful And Jealous, And Yet Capable Of Moments Of Tenderness And Extremes Of Arbitrary Affection - For David, For Example. But He's Not Real, Any More Than Hamlet Or Mr Pickwick Are Real. They Are Real In The Context Of Their Stories, But You Won't Find Them In The Phone Book.