'Spun Candy' anyone?

[davem]

(Ok, I found a reference to this statement of Philip Pullman on another board)

In an essay (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051226fa_fact) in the New Yorker Pullman states

At one point, Pullman and I stopped by the Eagle and Child, an Oxford pub where Lewis and Tolkien used to meet regularly with a group of literary friends. (They called themselves the Inklings.) A framed photograph of Lewis’s jowly face smiled down on us as we talked. In person, Pullman isn’t quite as choleric as he sometimes comes across in his newspaper essays. When challenged, he listens carefully and considerately, and occasionally tempers his ire. “The ‘Narnia’ books are a real wrestle with real things,” he conceded. As much as he dislikes the answers Lewis arrives at, he said that he respects “the struggle that he’s undergoing as he searches for the answers. There’s hope for Lewis. Lewis could be redeemed.” Not Tolkien, however: the “Rings” series, he declared, is “just fancy spun candy. There’s no substance to it.”

Now, what's interesting is that Pullman thinks the Narnia Chronicles are 'redeemable' while LotR is not. I wonder what he means by 'redeemed' here? Is he saying that the Narnia books could be changed to fit in with his own philosophical position while LotR could not? Apparently Lewis is asking the right questions, but getting the 'wrong' answers, while Tolkien is not asking any questions at all.

Is this in any way correct? Is Lewis asking difficult questions & Tolkien merely producing an 'entertainment'?

What's interesting is that Tolkien effectively said in the Foreword to LotR that he was writing an entertainment, a long tale that would move his readers, but that it was not an allegory, or an attempt to explain the nature of life, the universe & everything. Lewis called his Narnia books a 'supposal' - 'suppose the Son of God had appeared in a world like Narnia - what would happen?'

So, is it correct that Tolkien was not asking 'questions', & therefore not offering 'answers'? I suppose one could argue that he was presenting us with the harsh facts of life & death, without offering answers (how could he if he was not asking any questions?).

But if Lewis is 'redeemable' does that mean that there is a fundamental difference between the works of the two friends? And if Pullman is correct what does this say about the difference between the Middle-earth & Narnia?

Personally, I was never 'convinced' by Narnia or the worlds of HDM - both seemed fake, made up - perhaps because in each case the author is using their story to ask questions (& offer answers), while Tolkien was not.

So, is LotR 'spun candy' in the sense that it is not a didactic work? Perhaps - reading both HDM & the Narnia books I always felt I was in a classroom, being 'taught' something, while reading LotR was like the Summer Holidays, runnng through the fields, exploring the woods, having adventures.

[Roa_Aoife]

I'm not familiar with the HDM series or Pullman at all, and so I have little to offer on that front. From the article though, it would seem that he takes the same route that most atheists (take no offense if you are one) take: that is, they regard anything having to do with religion as a mistake. Which is ironic, because atheism is a religion in itself. I mean, it takes some serious conviction to say for certain that is no God.

Was Tolkien asking questions? I think he was asking just one: "How far can I take this world?" Was his work filled with religious themes? That's been debated here before, time and time again. (My personal favorite is still the "Is Eru God?" thread.)

The difference between Tolkien and Lewis? Lewis was an ardent defender of Christainity and an apologeticist (someone who uses reason and logic to defend faith). Tolkien wasn't. He never bothered arguing with anyone about his beliefs. He just had them. Some may have spilled over into his writings, but it seems apparent that he was writing because he loved to write. Lewis loved to write, but he used his skill to explain and defend what he believed.

Personally, I think Pullman is mistaken about Lewis. I don't Lewis was struggling for answers when he wrote Narnia. I think he had the answers and was trying to explain them to everyone else in a parable, much like Christ did. Tolkien wasn't trying to explain anything.

[Folwren]

Before I post any answers (I'm definitely considering writing a post up), I was wondering if you could tell me what HDM meant?

-- Folwren

[Lalwendë]

In the sense that Pullman calls LotR 'spun sugar' he means that it has no depth, but if we mean thatl a 'spun sugar' book is simply not didactic then that's a different question.

I reckon we'd all agree that Pullman is wrong and LotR does indeed have a lot of substance. I happen to think LotR is not didactic at all, so I might be entitled to call it 'spun sugar'; but this leads on to questioning whether a book must be didactic in order to be 'worthy' and to have depth.

Pullman I think is being deliberately provocative, as he knows that literature does not have to be didactic in order to have substance. The whole history of folklore and mythology is filled with what seem to be simple stories that conceal a great deal of meaning, as is the Bible. Poetry can also seem to be simple 'froth' and entertainment but is actually filled with meaning - Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience might seem to be simple poems at first reading but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Tolkien simply lays out a story upon a page and then leaves the reader to get on with the reading, and they may or may not find the deeper substance. I know many readers who do not, but they enjoy the books all the same and can talk about all the detail; they simply prefer not to analyse, just to enjoy. I think that this is a big factor in why Tolkien is so popular; his work appeals to a huge range of types of reader.

If he had written an allegory, his audience would have been very different. The Chronicles of Narnia have a big audience, but I'm sure I'm not alone in finding that Lewis lets me down as a reader of fantasy by telling me what to think. Just knowing that the books have this 'message' puts me off. I find it takes me out of the secondary world created and dumps me back in the real world. Likewise I found that HDM was spoiled by including God and Angels. Maybe its personal preference, but I find Tolkien's work much more subtle; a 'message' can be found for all kinds of people there. I suppose rather than being 'spun sugar', the writing style found in Tolkien's work is the subtly flavoured three course meal as opposed to the Big Mac and Fries style you often get from the book with an overt 'message'.

[davem]

Before I post any answers (I'm definitely considering writing a post up), I was wondering if you could tell me what HDM meant?

-- Folwren

The 'His Dark Materials' series (Northern Lights - or Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, Amber Spyglass)

[Folwren]

Oh. His Dark Materiels. I read The Golden Compass and didn’t like it. Too brutal and too full of evil for my taste.

Spun Candy? No. Bad description, I’d say. And as for Lewis giving wrong answers. . .well, you can’t imagine how many people have said that about a lot of his stuff, but I’d disagree entirely. Lewis is one of the best, in both writing and in theological matters.

I have heard Tolkien’s writing bashed quite a few times. There was one critic (and the book is at home, so I can’t quote him exactly), who said that the LotR was a childish fairy tale - empty, shallow, and ridiculous and not worth reading. I’d as soon believe this fellow as Pollman, who describes it as ‘spun candy.’

Lewis and Tolkien wrote for two different reasons and neither of them are wrong reasons. One is simply better than the other. Lewis’ reason for writing was to enlighten people, to help them, to make them understand - lift them up out of this dark world and place them in a better place with more hope. This is a spectacular reason to write - especially if you can put it into such charming stories as the Narnia books or his other fiction, as The Space Trilogy or Till We Have Faces. Tolkien wrote for the mere pleasure of it, but he didn’t leave out all the redeeming value. There are many, many, many authors out there today who write for the mere pleasure of it (that young chap who wrote Eldest, for instance, and got his book copied millions of times) and who’s books hold no value in it and no depth. These books (excuse my language) are trash. Most fantasies are like that. And some people, if they don’t know what good writing is and what depth is, might think that all fantasies are the same thing.

Tolkien may have written for entertainment, but who’s to say the books didn’t teach you anything? He did not write specifically to teach about Christ, Christianity in general, or anything like that, but he did happen to put into his books a lot of truths that can be used in our world.

No, Tolkein’s works are not ‘spun candy’, nor are Lewis’ books not redeemed already - they passed the test when his pen left the paper.

– Folwren

P.S. I realize this post somewhat strayed from the point. I won't deny I didn't quite understand the initial question, but upon further reading and looking up some words, I think I did, in the end. :D

[davem]

Clearly there is depth & meaning in Tolkien's work - if you look for it. Certainly it is moving, but principally it is Art, not didiacticism. I think this is what Pullman fails to grasp. To him the purpose of literature is to teach. The author is a teacher, passing on his wisdom to his readers, telling them the way things are - or should be. Hence, he doesn't argue with Lewis intention, only with the answers he offers. I suspect this is why he has a greater animus against Tolkien - because Tolkien isn't attempting to teach anything in LotR. He is attempting to create a work of Art. Pullman, therefore, cannot argue with Tolkien in the way he can argue with Lewis (hence Lewis is 'redeemable' - ie Pullman feels that if Lewis were still around he could be argued into adopting Pullman's point). What Pullman realises is that he cannot argue with Tolkien, because Tolkien would be simply standing by his Tree & smiling.

Of course, my real problem with Pullman is that what he has to 'teach' is so trivial, so inherently silly & 'PC' that he mostly bores me (I like the daemons, the armoured bears & the witches, but I suspect Pullman would say I was missing the 'deeper' meaning & relevance of the story - though actually those three creations are among the most interesting aspects of his novels).There's nothing more irritating than someone coming up to you & trying to impart their 'wisdom'.

Its the same with the way he always seems to have to keep sticking the boot into Lewis & Tolkien. Who is this guy anyway? He's written one novel that has been taken 'seriously' by a handful of pseuds. Its eqivalent to some amateur dramatist suddenly finding some play of his picked up & performed in the West End & proceeding in every interview to say how terrible & worthless Shakespeare is.

But now I'm digressing.

[Encaitare]

If spun candy = cotton candy, yum! No wonder I love LotR so much! :p

I think the very fact that Tolkien does not ask questions is a reason why his secondary world is so convincing. The "real world" does not work in allegories or symbols; questions about life, the universe, and everything are not offered, but arise as a result of living in that world. With LotR, the reader can come away with questions even though they have not been asked, and perhaps those questions have more merit because they expand the work in a sense. Instead of the author asking certain questions and offering answers (or expecting the reader to find his/her own answer), the reader can process what s/he has read and then build upon it. I think that is more important and inspiring than any question-and-answer session between a book and its reader, expecially because such a Q&A session is a one-way process. I daresay the reader could even be the questioner, and then search in the book for an answer that suits him/her -- after all, LotR is meant to be applicable rather than allegorical.

Which is ironic, because atheism is a religion in itself. I mean, it takes some serious conviction to say for certain that is no God.

With risk of digressing into an inappropriate topic (for this forum, anyway), I'd just like to say that atheism is not a religion. It often requires faith, yes -- but faith in reason rather than a deity.

[Bêthberry]

Its the same with the way he always seems to have to keep sticking the boot into Lewis & Tolkien. Who is this guy anyway? He's written one novel that has been taken 'seriously' by a handful of pseuds. Its eqivalent to some amateur dramatist suddenly finding some play of his picked up & performed in the West End & proceeding in every interview to say how terrible & worthless Shakespeare is.

But now I'm digressing.

And Tolkien never had any axes of his own to grind. *cough*Shakespeare*cough* ;)

[THE Ka]

Originally posted by Encaitare

With LotR, the reader can come away with questions even though they have not been asked, and perhaps those questions have more merit because they expand the work in a sense. Instead of the author asking certain questions and offering answers (or expecting the reader to find his/her own answer), the reader can process what s/he has read and then build upon it.

Exactly, they're sometimes called significant insights. Tolkien was insightful, and dare say, brave enough in the field of literature to decide upon this marvelous idea of writing a tale, maybe for his own entertainment, and what could be shared with his readers.
He didn't have to have an exact, precise goal in mind that he expected all of his readers to be repeating about with each other. He most likely was being conscious of his audience, while still having a good crack at creating something that flew like a comet into the horizon of literature. The idea of a writer sparking questions and thoughts made from their work, to their readers, is not a new one. It is more like a guideline if you are planning on ever catching a reader's attention with your work.
Even so, Tolkien was genius enough to be able not only to keep this thought in mind, but to create something completely new and mind-opening while experiencing the tale's journey himself.

~ Ka

[MatthewM]

That guy is crazy, obviously deserves the gallows of Mordor.

Beth, about that Shakesphere comment, what did Tolkien think of him?

[narfforc]

Pullman is a simple case of association through notoriety, here is a man with limited skill who is taking a potshot at the king of the hill, in the vain hope that everyone will take note of him scuttling around with the rest of the pack of copyists at the bottom.

[davem]

And Tolkien never had any axes of his own to grind. *cough*Shakespeare*cough* ;)

Well, he passed the odd comment re the way Shakespeare handled Fairies & the 'Birnham Wood to Dunsinane' thing, but I don't think he was actually 'anti' shakespeare - in fact Lewis & Currie have shown that Tolkien's feelings towards Shakespeare were not really all that negative at all. Certainly he didn't seem to seek out every opportunity to attack him.

I'm also wondering whether Tolkien's antipathy towards the Narnia books was in part due to Lewis didacticism...

[Lalwendë]

Clearly there is depth & meaning in Tolkien's work - if you look for it. Certainly it is moving, but principally it is Art, not didiacticism. I think this is what Pullman fails to grasp. To him the purpose of literature is to teach. The author is a teacher, passing on his wisdom to his readers, telling them the way things are - or should be. Hence, he doesn't argue with Lewis intention, only with the answers he offers. I suspect this is why he has a greater animus against Tolkien - because Tolkien isn't attempting to teach anything in LotR. He is attempting to create a work of Art. Pullman, therefore, cannot argue with Tolkien in the way he can argue with Lewis (hence Lewis is 'redeemable' - ie Pullman feels that if Lewis were still around he could be argued into adopting Pullman's point). What Pullman realises is that he cannot argue with Tolkien, because Tolkien would be simply standing by his Tree & smiling.


Firstly let me say that I loved HDM, it's one of my favourite books (well, sets of books, strictly speaking) and it had me very upset at points. Pullman conjoured up some truly startling creations, a wonderful main character and a vivid world. But he almost ruined it with the ending and all this business with God and Angels. That to me is argument enough to prove that 'message' novels can in fact sometimes be less worthy than 'entertainment' novels.

I would never claim that one type of book is better than the other, but a novel can be ruined by a heavy-handed or overbearing 'message'. Primarily we read fiction for pleasure; unless we're students of literature there's little point in wasting precious leisure time on a dull book. But likewise we don't always want to read frothy tripe. Unfortunately Pullman is of the school of thought that thinks literature (and no doubt films and TV too) must be 'worthy'; there are plenty of people in the opposite position who seek out the most mindless entertainments they can find.

Anyway, one thing we are overlooking is that Pullman must sell his books, and he seems to have identified a market. Those in the UK will recognise the middle-class, left-leaning type of person who likes to scoff at 'popular' entertainments and will know how much these types profess to despise Tolkien - usually coming up with the same tired old argument that Tolkien is 'racist' :rolleyes: . Pullman is merely pandering to the audience he seeks, who will flip open the papers gathered around the Aga in the Islington 'farmhouse' kitchen on a Sunday morning and like to read cosy reviews they feel comfortable with. Exactly the sort of people who were booing like children who'd just seen the Pantomime Villain, at the Big Read final when Tolkien won bestest book ever.

Fact remains that Pullman wrote HDM which was amazing, and then almost ruined it by clumsily trying to make a point towards the end. HDM is also the only work he's put out that's broken out of the kids' corner at the library so I suspect he's been into the sour grapes a bit and is trying to intellectualise simple dislike. ;)

[Roa_Aoife]

I have to say that I often amuse my friends by enjoying movies that don't always have a decent plot line (ie, Once upon a time in Mexico). And I am often amused by thier dislike of such movies. The difference is that they go to a movie to think, while I just go to fight off boredom. While I enjoy an intellectual satire as much as the next, and I can never get into slap stick humor, I don't go with the intent of being taught anything.

It can be the same way with books. (Though, admittedly, the plot line is far more important there.) If I want to be taught something, I'll head over to the non-fiction section and find a book on the subject I want to learn about. If I just want something entertaining to read, I'll wander into the fiction section and pick up something that looks like it will enterain me. While I enjoy Lewis, I find his storeies more enjoyable if I just ignore the lesson behind it.

I do remember starting the Golden Compass. I think I stopped at the 11th chapter, since nothing was getting anywhere and too many new plot lines were being introduced. I did pick up a distinct dislike of the Church, though.

With risk of digressing into an inappropriate topic (for this forum, anyway), I'd just like to say that atheism is not a religion. It often requires faith, yes -- but faith in reason rather than a deity.

A religion is a set of beliefs or pricncipals that one follows with conviction and zeal. And they don't have faith in Reason- they have faith in Science, which is entirely different. I won't carry the debate farther than this here, but I'd be happy to continue it in private with anyone who feels like it. (I'm studying apologetics, much like Lewis did.)

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Religion requires the supernatural. Debate over. :p

I agree with Lal about the ending of HDM. I thought it was a pretty good story until the last book, where it just got very messy and unsatisfying and lame.

Pullman reminds me of those kids (and, who am I kidding, adults too) who dislike a certain band, and try to explain to everyone who'll listen why they are so bad. They often don't notice that the exact same criteria can be applied to another band whom they do appreciate.

Ok Phil, you don't like The Lord of the Rings. That's fine, lots of people don't like it. Just leave it at that and stop talking about it. Don't scramble about, trying to find justification and persuasive arguments to present to other people. When it's something as trivial as a storybook, just accept your likes and dislikes.

[drigel]

Oh yes Pullman... sigh
"real wrestle with real things.."
To me, it's all about what writers want to right, and what readers want to read. The spectrum of fiction is so broad, it's pointless to rank one variety over the other. I suspect Pullman is aggrevated by the fact the JRRT was and is more popular \ successfull than Lewis, his obvious favorite between the two. But to take a literary stance on the argument to forward the validity of the position is silly.

When comparing both works, I would say that LOTR is a purer form of fiction. One can easily see that both authors collaborated and conversed on the subject, on the macro and smaller themes. I see two approaches on the same strategy. Not in the "lesson of the story", or the "wrestle", rather the basic ingredients of the structure. Past that, we see 2 different authors with vastly different goals in mind. LOTR, by not having a wardrobe, elevates the reader (or, to put it another way, with LOTR - the reader is the wardrobe). Much more elegant and subtle. Finer craftsmanship. Many out there are like Pullman - themes in fiction need to have a point, and that point needs to be backed up via the story. The author needs to tell the reader the message, and then prove that the point of the message is valid and correct. And of course it's correct, why else would the author write the story about the grand point in the first place... ugh

Its apples vs oranges, rather than steak vs candy...

Originally Posted by Bêthberry
And Tolkien never had any axes of his own to grind. *cough*Shakespeare*cough*

dont forget to add all things French to the grinding
:)

[davem]

The odd thing is that Pullman is so angry about LotR. Its not simply that he dislikes it - if he did he would just ignore it. It seems that he has set himself up as some kind of 'Dragon-slayer', & wants to destroy it, convince us its trivial, meaningless, bad. Yet he's not taking the 'Its all racist' tack, but rather the 'Its all pointless & silly' tack. Yet he refuses to explain why it speaks so deeply & powerfully so so many people.

It seems that his view is that unless a work of Art has a message to preach, it is valueless. He even values a book with a message he disagrees with (Lion, Witch & Wardrobe) more highly than a book with no 'message' (LotR). This is utilitarianism, materialism, taken to its extreme. If it has no practical use it must be destroyed. It is exactly the kind of 'Machine' thinking that Tolkien presents us with in Saruman & Sauron. I could see Saruman writing HDM In fact the 'message' of HDM could be summed up in Saruman's words to Gandalf in Orthanc.

Pullman's condemnation of Tolkien: "He’s interested in maps and plans and languages and codes.” sums up his attitude perfectly - 'maps and plans and languages and codes' are unnecessary in his opinion - they serve no practical purpose, & hence are BAD THINGS. They do not communicate a message to the reader, so they are 'sinful' & 'irredeemable'. Pulllman's final 'vision' of a new world is one where other realities are forever cut off & people get down to practical things & forget all that 'fantasy' stuff - trying to access those other realities (those 'secondary worlds') is dangerous, a threat to the worlds' survival. Fantasy is not necessary is Pullman's message. He even stated in an interview that he was using fantasy to undermine fantasy. Lewis wasn't wrong to open the wardrobe for children - he was wrong because at the end he didn't have the Professor turn it into firewood & send the children back home to dodge the bombs, because the bombs are real, practical things.

[MatthewM]

Well, he passed the odd comment re the way Shakespeare handled Fairies & the 'Birnham Wood to Dunsinane' thing, but I don't think he was actually 'anti' shakespeare - in fact Lewis & Currie have shown that Tolkien's feelings towards Shakespeare were not really all that negative at all. Certainly he didn't seem to seek out every opportunity to attack him.

I'm also wondering whether Tolkien's antipathy towards the Narnia books was in part due to Lewis didacticism...

That's interesting, I was wondering that because I personally do not like Shakesphere, and I'm happy to see Tolkien may have felt the same.

[Bêthberry]

A day full of adventures leaves very little time for the Downs, but here are some tardy replies and thoughts . . .

Beth, about that Shakesphere comment, what did Tolkien think of him?

Here's a brief rundown of the more accessible Will-whatnots in the Letters. Then on to the harder candy. ;) There are two areas that are tantalizing in terms of the imaginative space Tolkien created from reading Shakespeare .

Tolkien Sr. writes some fasinating comments about Hamlet to his son Christopher in Letter #76, comments which demonstrate clearly that Tolkien was very familiar with Shakespeare's work. Wise in the ways of theatre, he offers an opinion that, in light of fans' responses to Jackson's film (and the musical debacle), is fascinatingly ironic.


But it [the production] emphasised more strongly than anything I have ever seen the folly of reading Shakespeare (and annotating him in the study), except as a concomitant of seeing his plays acted. . . . Could one only have seen it without ever having read it or knowing the plot, it would have been terrific. . . . But to my surprise the part that came out as the most moving, almost intolerably so, was the one that in reading I always found a bore: the scene of mad Ophelia singing her snatches.

Letter #163 to W.H. Auden (who had been one of Tolkien's students at Oxford) gives us in a note a wonderful example of a tendency quite common in many authors: a seeming denial of obligation which really speaks to a profoundly moving experience of inspiration, influence, anxiety, first steps.


I had very little particular, conscious, intellectual, intention in mind at any point [... but was driven to it (ie, the writing) by the scarcity of literature of the sort that I wanted to read... [Here the text of the letter is amended by a long note, which follows]

Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called 'Treebeard', from Treebeards' first remark on p. 66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on my self (escept for labour pains) almost like reading some one else's work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the 'unconscious' for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when struck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at time to wait till 'what really happened' came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life. They owe their name to the eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion to stone. Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam wood to high Dusinane hill': I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war. . . .

Later in this same Letter #163 Tolkien provides a brief overview of his experiences as a schoolboy:


I went to King Edward's School and spent most of my time learning Latine and Greek; but I also learned English. Not English Literature! Except Shakespeare (which I disliked cordially), the chief contacts with poetry were when one was made to translate it into Latin.

It is in the lecture/essay On Fairy-Stories that Tolkien expresses his fundamental objection to what Shakespeare with with fairy creatures. In part Tolkien's objection is due to his thought that Fantasy is best left to words rather than to other forms of representation. He also dislikes the idea that Fairy is determined solely by the appearance as characters of elves, fairies, dwarves, trolls, giants, dragons. Here he greatly chastises Drayton's Nymphidia especially but also mentions that modern ideas about the nature of fairies derives from Midsummer Night's Dream. Yet it is the witches from, again, the Scottish play, that also draw his regrets.


In Macbeth, when it is read, I find the witches tolerable: they have a narrative function and some hint of dark significance; thought they are vulgarised, poor things of their kind. They are almost intolerable in the play. They would be quite intolerable, if I were not fortified by some memory of them as they in the story as read. . . . To be dissolved, or to be degraded, is the likely fate of Fantasy when a dramatist tries to use it, even such a dramatist as Shakespeare. Macbeth is indeed a work by a playwright who ought, at least on this ocassion, to have written a story, if he had the skill or patience for that art.

It is fair to say that these comments from Tolkien about Shakespeare are not quite the argumentative, inflamatory rhetoric that Pullman uses about both Tolkien and Lewis. What interests me is why these authors make these claims about their predecessors.

Lal and others have suggested that Pullman is playing to an audience. This could well be. Certainly these days 'in your face' and edginess are the favoured styles du jour. However, I wonder if there isn't something else also at play, something which actually is common to both Pullman and Tolkien.

Pullman cannot be immune nor silent about Tolkien, for Tolkien's presence as a precursor in the development of fantasy is vast, huge, blinding to lesser lights. Similarly, Shakespeare's presence also thunders through the ages of Eng lit. After all, Shakespeare still is produced on the stage, around the world. Few people see productions of Milton's literary plays and few people read of their own volition Paradise Lost. Shakespeare, in our day as in Tolkien's day, is still a writer with a contemporary presence.

So both Tolkien and Pullman had a major literary ghost to dispel--and all the more so since those ghosts had, I suspect, profound influences on their own writing. I'm not talking about dry-as-dust-pedantic "sources". I'm talking about a writer whose work acts as a stimulus to a later writer, a catalyst. And in this case, perhaps both Pullman and Tolkien resist that catalyst, almost as if, in speaking denial, one were erradicating the very nature of something which influenced one so much as a writer. Is this part of what it means to carve out one's own personal space as a writer? Rather than 'completing' their forefathers, perhaps Tolkien and Pullman both found/find themselves bound to find fault with a writer who profoundly influenced his own work? The tone of that fault varies, as the tone of the ages each man lived in varied, but essentially are they both, when they comment upon his fabled predecessor, trying to put his own ideas in a prominent light? In order not to appear to be repeating, they propound upon a writer who in fact gave them the very materials which they use to hew their own space in the forest of words.

In other words, if Tolkien weren't so great a mark, would Pullman throw stones at him? If Shakespeare hadn't 'done' elves so famously, would Tolkien feel the need to correct him? For both writers, Tolkien and Pullman, there are some fascinating parallels that can be found between their new and original work and the work of a forefather.

[davem]

So both wish to kill their 'father'? But if we're getting all Oedipal here, what is the 'mother' they seek to possess?

[Macalaure]

This is purely speculative, so feel free to disagree with me or to ignore my post altogether.


I would say that the 'mother' is their own writing. Of course this means in a way it's not their mother but their children, so the analogy doesn't exactly work with this approach.
Following Bethberry, their 'fathers' had a major influence on their own work. Now they might fear that others notice this influence and point it out, maybe even to the extend to say they copied parts. To themselves, this may seem as if their work is degraded in others' eyes and this they cannot and do not suffer. To overcome it by pointing out and explaining why they and their work weren't influenced like this is not enough, as it may be objected with good arguments. That is why they have to attack their fathers themselves with opinions and tell everybody just how much they dislike them. Now, in their eyes, they have their creation back for their own and unspoiled.

Though, I don't think I can go this far with Tolkien and Shakespeare, as Tolkien never publicly voiced his dislikes.


About the question "Why does Pullman criticise Tolkien the way he does" one more thing came to my mind. Especially the "real wrestle with real things" has me thinking and reminded me of the "Is Fantasy a dream or an escape?"-thread. Pullman would certainly have answered: none of the two, fantasy has only so much value as it is directly connected with reality. So my question is: Is Pullman a jailer (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpost.php?p=472124&postcount=40)?

[davem]

In this context I'm reminded of Tolkien's words in the Essay he wrote on Smith:

BUT Faery is not religious. It is fairly evident that it is not Heaven or Paradise. Certainly its inhabitants, Elves, are not angels or emlssares of God (direct). The tale does not deal with religion itself. The Elves are not busy with a plan to reawake religious devotion in Wootton. The Cooking allegory would not be suitable to any such import. Faery represents at its weakest a breaking out (at least in mind) from the iron ring of the familiar, stilI more from the adamantine ring of belief that it is known, possessed, controlled, and so (ultimately) all that is worth being considered - a constant awareness of a world beyond these rings. More strongly it represents love: that is, a love and respect for all things, 'inanimate' and 'animate', an unposessing love of them as 'other'. This 'love' will produce both ruth and delight. Things seen in its light will be respected, and they will also appear delightful, beautiful, wonderful - even glorious.

Pullman, it seems, is aware of a world beyond these rings, but considers it to be dangerous & wishes to instill a fear of it in his readers & so attacks any work which presents it in a positive light.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I'm enjoying the various ideas and contributions which this topic produces! It's been awhile since I read HDM, and I don't own it, so I can't go back to check up my memories. As I recall, I enjoyed it, especially the first two books, very much, (though I did not agree with the author's basic premise concerning faith) but found its ending less satisfying. It was a let-down for me; Pullman's view of the end of human life was without hope, since it led to nothing, more or less.

Lewis' Narnia series ends clearly allegorically, and I don't enjoy rereading it as much as I did years ago, but there is a fascination in "further up and further in"! "The inside is larger than the outside" is a hopeful view of future beauty.

Tolkien manages to give each character in his story a different ending - no stereotyped sugary closing for anyone! Aragorn's was a fairy-tale ending - he got the kingdom and the bride, to keep at least until we read Appendix A. Frodo got the "escape from this world" ending, with the hope of healing. Sam got the "back home" ending, coming full circle to stay where he began, though changed. We could go on with each character, with each one finding what is appropriate for him/her. How could "spun candy" have so much differentiation?! There is depth there - and hope.

There is also so much wisdom in LotR, whether the common sense of Sam's Gaffer or Gandalf's speeches (think of his answer to "I wish it hadn't happened in my time" or the closing words "I will not say, do not weep", to mention only two). Those are not sermons, trying to convert anyone, but they give us readers something to ponder and to take with us that enriches our lives.

Of all three books/series, which would I take to the proverbial desert island? My presence here answers that question, I'm sure.

[Bêthberry]

So both wish to kill their 'father'? But if we're getting all Oedipal here, what is the 'mother' they seek to possess?

One need not 'apply' the family romance to the idea that great minds read more closely into things, so closely, that they produce new, original readings for us. There are many other metaphors one may use.

Besides, it is interesting to note that both Tolkien and Pullman lost their fathers early in life.

What a different world academe was before the "publish or perish" madness! And before our modern glut of journalism and marketing/advertising.

It might really be interesting to know what Tolkien's teaching style and methods were and contrast them to Pullman's.

Esty, that's a lovely witness to your love of Tolkien!

[davem]

I wonder if the comment in OFS is actually 'criticsm' of Shakespeare as a playwright. Tolkien seems only to be criticising Shakespeare's use of fantasy in Macbeth (& also by extension in A Midsummer Night's Dream & The Tempest, I suppose.) Certainly he never goes as far as Pullman in calling his 'father's' work 'infantile'. Tolkien at least offers a valid reason for his criticism, & doesn't resort to mere insult. He states he disliked reading Shakespeare, but also states that he was moved by Ophelia's singing. In short his problem seems to be with the reading of Shakespeare as opposed to watching it, & when Shakespeare puts fantasy on stage. His statement that Shakespeare should have written Macbeth as a story implies that he respected his narrative talents but felt that in that case they were misapplied.

Anyway...

Pullman's statement that LotR is 'infantile' clearly sets out Pullman's position - fantasy is inherently 'childish' & it is the 'duty' of an author to help his child readers 'grow up' & put away childish things. So Pullman uses fantasy to undermine fantasy (in his own words). The end of HDM is the end of fantasy. The worlds seperate forever, & the children proceed to get on with the 'grown-up' task of 'building the Republic of Heaven'. Now, being that 'Heaven' is essentially a metaphysical concept, its difficult to work out what this statement actually means, or how it could be achieved.

What Pullman seem s to mean is that everyone should work to make the world a better place, where everyone is nice to each other all the time & they all live happily ever after. And this is a 'grown up' novel according to the Literati (among whom Pullman presumably numbers himself!

Of course, this 'Republic of Heaven' is anything but 'Heaven' in the sense we understand the term. It is 'Heaven' without any spiritual aspect at all - yet Heaven is spiritual if it is anything. We have to conclude that the whole 'building a Republic of Heaven' idea is a meaningless phrase. To have read a thousand page novel & end up with a piece of nonsense like that as the author's final word is enough to make you throw the book across the room & demand those lost hours of your life back. To compare the words 'build the Reublic of Heaven' with Sam's final words: 'Well, I'm back' is to experience a real shock - the power of Tolkien's simple statement (what Pullman would describe, one assumes, as 'infantile’ with Pullman's bland & meaningless rhetoric, is almost overwhelming & shows that if either work is 'infantile' it is certainly not Tolkien's.

[Bêthberry]

I wonder if the comment in OFS is actually 'criticsm' of Shakespeare as a playwright.

Well, I suppose we could quibble over what you mean by criticism, but I had used the words 'objection' and 'correction' and suggested that the main point of Tolkien's comments derived from the question of the nature of fairy. Clearly the quotations available show that Tolkien thought Shakespeare worth 'doing'. The signficant issue I think is that Shakespeare provided Tolkien with a valuable 'place' from which to consider fairy. Tolkien's thoughts about fairy are, to my mind, substantial and significant and clearly Shakespeare played some part in helping him think about how to represent the land--or at least in part how to explain the lay of said land to his audience. It was, then, a very important and complex relationship, one which allowed Tolkien to develop his thought.




Anyway...

Pullman's statement that LotR is 'infantile' clearly sets out Pullman's position - fantasy is inherently 'childish' & it is the 'duty' of an author to help his child readers 'grow up' & put away childish things. So Pullman uses fantasy to undermine fantasy (in his own words). The end of HDM is the end of fantasy. The worlds seperate forever, & the children proceed to get on with the 'grown-up' task of 'building the Republic of Heaven'. Now, being that 'Heaven' is essentially a metaphysical concept, its difficult to work out what this statement actually means, or how it could be achieved.

What Pullman seem s to mean is that everyone should work to make the world a better place, where everyone is nice to each other all the time & they all live happily ever after. And this is a 'grown up' novel according to the Literati (among whom Pullman presumably numbers himself!

Of course, this 'Republic of Heaven' is anything but 'Heaven' in the sense we understand the term. It is 'Heaven' without any spiritual aspect at all - yet Heaven is spiritual if it is anything. We have to conclude that the whole 'building a Republic of Heaven' idea is a meaningless phrase. To have read a thousand page novel & end up with a piece of nonsense like that as the author's final word is enough to make you throw the book across the room & demand those lost hours of your life back. To compare the words 'build the Reublic of Heaven' with Sam's final words: 'Well, I'm back' is to experience a real shock - the power of Tolkien's simple statement (what Pullman would describe, one assumes, as 'infantile’ with Pullman's bland & meaningless rhetoric, is almost overwhelming & shows that if either work is 'infantile' it is certainly not Tolkien's.

With Tolkien, we have a very fine essay in OFT and the "minor works" to help us discuss his thoughts on fantasy. What we have of Pullman in this thread is nothing like that and your comments seem to be moving back and forth between reported statements and HDM for analysis. What I think would really give us something substantial to compare would be Pullman's actual lectures themselves rather than a few choice phrases reported by a journalist.

For instance, the first post for this thread starts with:



In an essay in the New Yorker Pullman states

Quote:
At one point, Pullman and I stopped by the Eagle and Child, an Oxford pub where Lewis and Tolkien used to meet regularly with a group of literary friends. (They called themselves the Inklings.) A framed photograph of Lewis’s jowly face smiled down on us as we talked. In person, Pullman isn’t quite as choleric as he sometimes comes across in his newspaper essays. When challenged, he listens carefully and considerately, and occasionally tempers his ire. “The ‘Narnia’ books are a real wrestle with real things,” he conceded. As much as he dislikes the answers Lewis arrives at, he said that he respects “the struggle that he’s undergoing as he searches for the answers. There’s hope for Lewis. Lewis could be redeemed.” Not Tolkien, however: the “Rings” series, he declared, is “just fancy spun candy. There’s no substance to it.”


Yet Pullman here is himself quoted, and the actual passage itself is written by the journalist Laura Miller. It is Miller who makes those statements, not Pullman himself directly. We are certainly right to take umbrage with such characterisations, yet it seems to me that 'sound bites' aren't always the full story. I would much rather prefer to read Pullman's thought in its entirety, in his own words and then to take issue with him.

Laura Miller's article is fascinating for it seems to me to suggest subtly connections between Pullman and Tolkien and those connections stand in contrast to Pullman's antipathy to Tolkien and Lewis. Pullman chooses to buy organic bacon? Sounds like something Tolkien would do today. Telling stories and jokes? Sounds to me a fair bit like our Tollers. She's up to something here--not a bad thing by any means--but what she is up to isn't necessarily what Pullman himself may be up to.

The passage which davem quotes from Tolkien's essay on Smith has a fascinating comment, which I don't think we've really explored much:


BUT Faery is not religious. It is fairly evident that it is not Heaven or Paradise. Certainly its inhabitants, Elves, are not angels or emlssares of God (direct). The tale does not deal with religion itself.

Would Pullman say this, that fairy (or fantasy) is not religious? Or his his 'story' not the same thing as 'fairy'? We need to examine these kinds of differences between their thought, I think.

So, I suggest that, before we really get our knickers all in a knot, we try to track down Pullman's full statements and then give him due process.

[MatthewM]

Thanks for the Letter quotes Beth, but I didn't understand anything Tolkien was saying on Shakesphere, as he usually speaks in riddles. I couldn't tell if it was for or against. Maybe it was neither? Ah well, it's not what the topic is about anyway.

[Lalwendë]

Thanks for the Letter quotes Beth, but I didn't understand anything Tolkien was saying on Shakesphere, as he usually speaks in riddles. I couldn't tell if it was for or against. Maybe it was neither? Ah well, it's not what the topic is about anyway.

It seems to me that Tolkien feels the same way as I do about studying drama texts from books, that it just isn't satisfying, and it does the plays an injustice. I always found myself frustrated reading plays out of books, I wanted to see the plays and hear them. I had to ask myself if people in Shakespeare's day would have sat in earnest groups reading his plays from the page. No, they would have been in rough, bawdy, crowded theatres watching the action, listening to these lines being said aloud, and probably shouting and heckling and stuff too.

I can't read Marlowe's Doctor Faustus without constantly stopping to visualise it, and wish there was a modern film of it to watch with all the mad stuff made real on the screen. I've seen the Revenger's Tragedy performed where they handed out plastic capes for the front row audience to wear as the actors flung around fake blood and raw meat. That's what Drama's about, noise and action, and singing and hearing someone read the poetry aloud. ;) I think that is exactly what Tolkien's getting at.

Anyway, back on topic...

Tolkien's work exists within its own world, its own universe. Arda is a different place. Pullman's world however, exists alongside our own world. I wonder just how much Pullman hates the notion of an entire other world? He mentions Narnia which is also accessible from our own world. I wonder if he is reacting against this detachment from the Real World that Arda has? And I wonder if he has read (or even is aware of) Tolkien's experimental fictions such as The Lost Road which tried to link Arda to the Real World? I suspect he never will know about this as he has no desire to explore Tolkien's work further.

What he is missing with the accusation of 'spun sugar' aimed at Tolkien's writing is something important in literature, subtlety. Tolkien's work has a grip on and deals with some of the biggest issues of the modern age, such as environmental disaster, totalitarianism, war and the enslavement of mankind to the 'machine' of society. He also has incredible characters such as Gollum who make us stop and think about who and what is 'good' and 'evil'. In Tolkien's work, this is all put across with subtlety. His style is poetic, and by that I mean his work works on many levels like a poem does; there is the surface 'plot' but underneath are the layers - language revealing history, events having several interpretations, dialogue revealing character rather than internal monologue doing so (the usual modern form).

This may reveal a lot about the two writers' reading preferences - certainly Tolkien was fond of old epics, usually in the poetic form, where a few lines can reveal a whole host of details and allow for many speculations.

What I found in HDM was a wonderful work, which itself had a lot of potential for speculation and mystery, but which fell down towards the end with some very shaky storytelling; it was clear that the 'point' was more important than the 'story' towards the end as so little of it rang true. I do suspect that he began in much the same way that Tolkien did, just writing, and the 'point' only became apparent at a later stage, at too late a stage to correctly tie it in with the plot. In any case, he clearly could not let go of the 'magic' himself as he later produced a short story about Lyra and a 'Book Of Dust' may be written; holding true to his own 'point', surely Lyra should just now 'grow up'? So he's not that different to Tolkien after all. ;)

[Encaitare]

Whilst reading Letters yesterday, I came across some interesting excerpts that go with this topic pretty well. The particular letter is #183, "a comment, apparently written for Tolkien's own satisfaction and not sent or shown to anyone else, on 'At the End of the Quest, Victory', a review of The Return of the King by W. H. Auden in the New York Times Book Review, 22 January 1956.

I believe that it is precisely because I did not try, and have never thought of trying to 'objectify' my personal experience of life that the account of the Quest of the Ring is successful in giving pleasure to Auden (and others). Probably it is also the reason, in many cases, why it has failed to please some readers and critics. The story is not about JRRT at all, and is at no point an attempt to allegorize his experience of life -- for that is what the objectifying of his subjective experience in a tale must mean, if anything.

[...]

Men do go, and have in history gone on journeys and quests, without any intention of acting out allegories of life.

[Bêthberry]

I haven't read these links yet, but here are Pullman's lectures in full.

Miss Goddard's Grave (http://www.philip-pullman.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=113)


Isis Speech (http://www.philip-pullman.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=66)


Guardian article on teaching (http://www.philip-pullman.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=67)


The Dark Side of Narnia (http://www.crlamppost.org/darkside.htm)

[Tevildo]

I also thought this might be helpful. It's the full text of an interview in which Pullman discusses a number of topics, including his views on Tolkien and Lewis.

Here. (http://www.powells.com/authors/pullman.html)

I find the man fascinating! There are things about him I love and many others I can't stand. I love what he says about the teaching of literature and how children should be allowed to enjoy things and not just be forced to analyze them. That was one of Bethberry's links. I think he must have been a fly on the wall during some of the classes that I've taken!

[HerenIstarion]

Is this part of what it means to carve out one's own personal space as a writer?

No, I don't think it is that delibarate or conscious.

[I believe] 'Tolkien vs Shakespeare' is not that much open dislike but rather a regret - 'The Great who surely could, and could well, [deliberately] did not' kind of feeling

[I believe] Pullman vs Tolkien is 'play for audience' for sure, but more than this it is rather utter opposition of worldviews. 'There are enemies, and this is the greatest. Let us beat him on his own ground' kind of feeling

[Lalwendë]

The Isis Lecture is very interesting.

He points out that teaching in English schools is now very mechanical and he is correct; there is very little room for creativity on the part of the teacher and is one of the reasons I'd never ever go back to that job. I hate the way kids only read extracts of books, and do meaningless analysis. Vile. But I used to show kids how to structure a story, and there is nothing wrong in teaching how to do this - it not only can have benefits in structuring creative work but helps in essay writing for other subjects; discipline of thought is not always bad. However, there is indeed a time and a place for this, and I used to show that structures don't always work, and I certainly wouldn't allocate time slots for that kind of work - that's madness, or else the spectre of HM Inspectors breathing down the neck of the teacher. I once had a run in with one of the early inspectors who challenged me for writing in capitals on a blackboard (yes, we did call them blackboards). I pointed out that in a freezing, tumble down old shed in the wilds of Barnsley some of the kids were a very long way from the blackboard and couldn't see otherwise. :rolleyes:

It's all the result though of utilitarianism. Nowadays, education is there not to turn us into fey little poets or freely expressive dancers but into insurance brokers and hairdressers and IT support officers. I know this because I'm right at the middle of it all. Some kids actually do want that though; I've a friend who hated anything remotely artistic at school, she just wanted to learn to type and do office work. The problem is that any child who is not bright, not a swot, is poor, black or male will be steered into the path of usefulness.

What's this got to do with Pullman Vs Tolkien anyway? What amuses me is that Tolkien clearly did not 'plan' his writing, he just sat down and let rip (so to speak ;)) and he's even said things about him 'finding out' what really happened, which suggests the kind of joyful free for all authorial chaos that Pullman advocates. Yet Pullman does plan his writing! What he says in the article posted by Tevildo demonstrates this.

The other amusing point is that Pullman in the Isis lecture calls for more story telling in the classroom, for more narrative. He also calls for more narrative in Tevildo's article, and bemoans modern literary experimentation. Yet this is what he does not like about Tolkien.

I find it frustrating really. From what he says, he ought to love Tolkien, but he does not. Is this just another case of someone intellectualising simple dislike?

[Bêthberry]

No, I don't think it is that delibarate or conscious.

[I believe] 'Tolkien vs Shakespeare' is not that much open dislike but rather a regret - 'The Great who surely could, and could well, [deliberately] did not' kind of feeling

[I believe] Pullman vs Tolkien is 'play for audience' for sure, but more than this it is rather utter opposition of worldviews. 'There are enemies, and this is the greatest. Let us beat him on his own ground' kind of feeling


The other amusing point is that Pullman in the Isis lecture calls for more story telling in the classroom, for more narrative. He also calls for more narrative in Tevildo's article, and bemoans modern literary experimentation. Yet this is what he does not like about Tolkien.

I find it frustrating really. From what he says, he ought to love Tolkien, but he

The more I look back at HDM, the more I become very curious about Pullman's attitude towards Tolkien's brand of fantasy.

HI, I think you are on to something in the way Tolkien regards Shakespeare. He does admire the man's writing and talent. Otherwise, why would he bother going to see performances? Yet what I think is significant is how Tolkien's view of elves and other creatures of fairy differed substantially from Shakespeare's. It is possible that these depictions grated enough on Tolkien to cause him to reuminate upon the way to represent fairy. In that sense, Tolkien stood on Shakespeare's shoulder to see farther. You are right that this differs in quality from Pullman. I rather think that Tolkien still had very much the old gracious politeness about him, a sense of courtesy and fair play, the social civility which our age lacks to a very great extent.

Difference of world view. Admittedly, Pullman is a declared atheist, but many Christians have come to the defense of HDM as an attack not on true faith but on the wretched consequence of dogma and religious oppression, the misuse of church power and authority. As far as I can recall from HDM, it is the wrongful use of authority which draws Pullman's great ire. Yes, he eradicates this woeful and oppressive figure The Authority, but what does it mean if we interpret this figure as God?If we say that Pullman is attacking Christianity, does that mean we accept as right and true the depiction of the Church and The authority? In some measure I think Pullman's attitude towards authority, while differing from Tolkien's, might not be radically opposite.

As for Pullman not loving Tolkien, I took a look at the final chapter of volume three last night. It ends in the Botanic Garden in Lyra's Oxford, which of course is not "our" Oxford. Yet Lyra's daemon runs up his favourite tree, a large old pine. Now that I've visited the Botanic Garden in Oxford, I know this tree, as it was Tolkien's favourite tree also and the last known photograph we have of him shows him standing beside it and touching it. I cannot help but think that Pullman knows of this. Why do this? Why the pine and not any of the several other trees in the Botanic Garden? Also, on his third planet there are trees that are silver and gold. I'm sure that if one went through HDM one could find some very fascinating perspectives of Tolkien's work, worked into Pullman's.

Yet Pullman bemoans Tolkien. Why? When I look closely at Pullman's writing, I see a great many metaphors and comparisons and references to the natural world, the natural world which science has made known to us. He talks about cell growth, he talks about nuclear engergy, he talks about many kinds of scientific knowledge. Is it that Tolkien's fantasy does not partake of this materialism which draws his ire?

Pullman certainly has a particular respect for Imagination, but perhaps it is a different imagination than that of Tokien's? To say that their differences relate to Pullmann's atheism might be barking up the wrong tree. That is incidental to the more profound difference, a difference between views of what fantasy and imagination are.

I'm not sure how valid this, but I thought I would throw it out for discussion.

[davem]

I'm sure that if one went through HDM one could find some very fascinating perspectives of Tolkien's work, worked into Pullman's.

And of course, Will loses two fingers to the Subtle knife - Pullman always has to try & go one better than Tolkien it seems :p

Found this [/QUOTE]here (http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0202/articles/hinlicky.html)

Philip Pullman, author of the trilogy collectively entitled His Dark Materials, denies that he is a fantasy author. Rather, his books are works of “stark realism” illuminated by fantastic elements (as Daniel P. Moloney notes in his deadly accurate review in these pages, May 2001). The fantastic elements are easily integrated into the ordinary life of Lyra’s world and plenty of other parallel universes, if not our own: witches, subtle knives, alethiometers, archangels, and specters all have their place without the slightest self–consciousness about their magical properties.

But the trilogy’s conclusion imitates, in an odd and truncated sort of way, the other fantasies considered here. The heroine Lyra is prophesied from the beginning to be “the end of destiny” in her role as the new Eve. Here it means the long–overdue disintegration of God the Authority and the defeat of Metatron the killjoy angel—no more dictation from on high of the fates of men below. Yet this happy victory necessitates an unhappy ending (for reasons not entirely clear): the subtle knife, which cuts passageways between the universes, must be broken once and for all and its windows permanently closed. No more adventures, but no more bad guys (or gods), either.

Predictably enough, the conclusion is absurdly moralistic. Now that the persecuting church has been subdued and hell emptied out, sentient beings are free, and not just free but obliged, to pursue the Republic of Heaven, Pullman’s embarrassingly anticlimactic solution to his trilogy’s dilemma. On the last page of the last book, Lyra muses to her daemon Pantalaimon that the Kingdom of Heaven is blessedly finished, so now all the people can devote their energies to this life on this earth rather than worrying about the next. And it entails, she realizes in a convenient flash of insight, being “all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds.” This goes well beyond the philosophical fallacy of deriving an “ought” from an “is.” It’s deriving an “ought” from an “isn’t.”

The problem of His Dark Materials is the same as that of The Dark is Rising: power, in itself, is the ultimate good. The winners are the ones with the most power, and so they (and their author) can define their goals as righteous. Power is not forsaken but democratically distributed, and the excesses of power in pursuit of that distribution are never seriously addressed. The disturbing questions that remain are quietly covered over in the name of the brotherhood of all mankind. The knife is broken and then it’s back to the age–old conundrum of how we live together. It is deliciously ironic, though, that a series so determined to disprove original sin is forced at the end to demonstrate its unassailable existence with a concluding ethical plea.

Not saying I agree with all the author's points on Fantasy literature but I think her analysis of HDM is spot on.

I think its clear that for alll his arguments to the contrary Pullman is not simply attacking organised religion in HDM but the desire for (as well as the hope in) anything 'beyond the Circles of the World. All Pullman offers us instead is the 'task of

being “all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds.”

Now, to me. this is Tolkien's starting point in LotR. In other words, Tolkien's Epic starts at the point Pulllman's leaves off. Pullman's 'solution' to our human dilemma is Tolkien's 'Question' - the Question he takes over a thousand pages to propound, & never really answers (because there isn't an answer). Simply put, Pullman believes that there is a solution to all Mankind's problems - 'Let's be nice to each other & read some books so we'll get clever & then everything will be Ok' (till we all die & are forgotten). Tolkien doesn't belives the solution to our problems is so easy. There is only stark courage in the face of the Dragon & the willingness to fight the Long Defeat. And for Tolkien the Dragon is a reality - the most real of all reallities. For Pullman the Dragon is a delusion - it doesn't have to be fought because it doesn't exist - or if it does its simply 'selfishness' & the refusal to read enough proper books & apply ourselves to our studies & be 'nice' to each other.

[Child of the 7th Age]

I am enjoying reading this thread.

Just a side comment....

It's intriguing to me that Pullman had one of his chief nasties live in Limefield House in Headington: Sir Charles Latrom (mortal spelled backwards) also known as Lord Carlo Boreal. He's the one whose daemon is a serpent with a pointed tongue. Of course, Tolkien lived at 76 Sandfield Road in Headington Hill when he was writing LotR. Lewis also had a house there at one time.

This could just be coincidence--Pullman lives in Oxford and certainly knows the area. But I've also read somewhere that the description the author gives of the house in The Subtle Knife is very close to the house that Tolkien actually lived in. Even the people on the Pullman website indicate that the Headington the author mentions is undoubtedly Headington Hill. They also note that elsewhere in the book Pullman gives very specific Oxford addresses, but in this case he has chosen to be vague.... Somehow I doubt the use of this location for the villain's house is purely coincidence.

I enjoy HDM but sometimes Pullman comes over as petty and combative in his interviews when he is not even being attacked. I think he could use a dose of hobbit politeness.

[davem]

Found a link to this (http://www.sofn.org.uk/Conferences/pullman2002.htm) speech by Pullman, & I think it gives a real insight into his approach to fantasy & his feelings about LotR. Some quotes:


It's not just character-drawing, either; it's moral truthfulness. I can't remember anything in The Lord of the Rings, in all that vast epic of heroic battles and ancient magic, that titanic struggle between good and evil, that even begins to approach the ethical power and the sheer moral shock of the scene in Jane Austen's Emma when Mr Knightley reproaches the heroine for her thoughtless treatment of poor Miss Bates. Emma's mortification is one of those eye-opening moments after which nothing is the same. Emma will grow up now, and if we pay attention to what's happening in the scene, so will we. That's what realistic fiction can do, and what fantasy of the Tolkien sort doesn't. ..

Because when I thought about it, there was no reason why fantasy shouldn't be realistic, in a psychological sense - and it was the lack of that sort of realism that I objected to in the work of the big Tolkien and all the little Tolkiens. After all, when I looked at Paradise Lost, there was plenty of psychological realism going on there, and the fantastical elements - the angels and the devils, the landscapes of hell, Satan's encounter with Sin and Death, and so on - were all there to embody states of mind. They weren't unreal like Gandalf; they were nonreal like Mary Garth - convincing and truthful in every way except actual existence....

Tolkien, by contrast, didn't question anything: it didn't occur to him to do so, because for him, as a Catholic, all the big questions were settled. The Church had all the answers, and that was that. Is there any doubt anywhere in The Lord of the Rings, even for a fraction of a second, about what is good and what is evil, what is to be praised and what is to be condemned? Not a flicker. No one wonders what the right thing is: they only doubt their own capacity to do it. The whole thing is an exercise in philological and social nostalgia, a work of immense triviality, candied like fruit in an Edwardian schoolboy's idea of fine writing.

The final quote is, for me, the silliest thing Pullman says. The idea that Tolkien didn't question anything because all the big questions were settled by the Church is just wrong. Certainly he made a moral & philosophical choice to accpet the teacjings of his faith, but to imply that was a simple thing for him is a statement based on ignorance of the facts. No-one could go through what Tolkien did could make a simple decision to just believe everything he was told from a pulpit. He was way too intelligent for that.

Yes, in Middle-earth there is no question about what is Good & what is Evil. This was the core of Tolkien's philosophy - Good & Evil are absolutes: our task is to find the strength to do what's right, not to agonise over what good & Evil actually are. There isn't any struggle about what a good person should do, only over how to find the strength to do it.

Pullman actuallly contracicts the final statement in his 'epic' here. He has Lyra state that the task of everyone in the post 'Death of God' era is

being “all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds.”

Pullman has a very clear idea of what is 'Good' & what is 'Evil'. Organised Religion & all its restrictions, is 'Evil', Human freedom of thought & the freedom to build a better world is 'Good'. Now, this view of what is Good & what is Evil, may be different from Tolkien's but it is there in Pullman. What Pullman doesn't like about Tolkien is not that Tolkien believes in Moral absolutes where Pullman doesn't, but that Tolkien's moral abolutes are different to his own. Pullman no more questions his own views of what is Good & what is Evil than Tolkien does.

Whatever. Tolkien has created a world in which Good & Evil are (& must be) moral absolutes, which cannot be questioned. Pullman presents us with a world in which moral absolutes must be defined & then lived up to. Tolkien presents us with a world where moral absolutes have already been defined & must be lived up to. As I said earlier, Tolkien begins where Pullman ends.

EDIT

I have to wonder what Pullman thinks there is to agonise over in the sense of 'what is good, what is Evil' in Tolkien's world - should one wonder whether to side with Sauron of not, whether to claim the Ring & become a Monster or not, whether to desert ones friends or not, the value of mercy, etc. In fact, Tolkien & Pullman seem to share a sense of what's right & what's wrong in terms of basic ethical behaviour. Both have a belief in objective moral standards & the requirement to try & live up to them. I think the difference between them is that for Pullman these objective standards, if they are to be truly, morally, Good, must be seen, & stated in no uncertain terms, to come from Humans themselves, whereas for Tolkien, if they are to have any validity they must have an external, objective origin in 'God'/Eru. For Tolkien Humans are fallen & therefore fallible & require Divine guidance . For Pullman they are not - they just fail to do all they can, to achieve their full potential - by not living up to Pullman's own ideal standard for them. Pullman himself takes the place of Eru in his own Secondary World, lays down the moral standards for his characters. Tolkien lays down the standards of his own Judeo-Christian faith for the characters in his Secondary world.

[Mister Underhill]

Yes, in Middle-earth there is no question about what is Good & what is Evil. This was the core of Tolkien's philosophy - Good & Evil are absolutes: our task is to find the strength to do what's right, not to agonise over what good & Evil actually are.I daresay that this is too simplistic. A key theme of Tolkien's is of a desire to do good which ends in evil, great or small. You have the characters who are obviously deluding themselves, like Saruman, but then you also have Sam snapping at Gollum at a critical moment -- to help Frodo, but perhaps with the ultimate effect of tilting Gollum away from redemption forever. Good and evil are not so clear in Tolkien as Pullman would like to think they are.

[davem]

I daresay that this is too simplistic. A key theme of Tolkien's is of a desire to do good which ends in evil, great or small. You have the characters who are obviously deluding themselves, like Saruman, but then you also have Sam snapping at Gollum at a critical moment -- to help Frodo, but perhaps with the ultimate effect of tilting Gollum away from redemption forever. Good and evil are not so clear in Tolkien as Pullman would like to think they are.

I would say that Good & Evil are clearly defined in Tolkien's world. Though individuals may not be entirely clear on how to do the right thing they are clear on what it is. Where they fail, as in the examples you cite, they have either decided that the end justifies the means (Saruman), so that they are free to commit evil acts in order to bring about ultimate Good, or they are so focussed on the Good (Sam) that they fail to take into account the effect of their actions on present circumstances.

So, my position is that Good & Evil are clearly & sharply defined by Tolkien, but the moral choice each individual faces is how to do the right thing, not what the right thing is (I'm speaking here of the bigger picture, the ultimate goal). Sam knew he had treated Gollum badly - he apologises to him after his outburst. Saruman knew he had taken the wrong road & rejected his chances of repentance.

To say that 'good & evil are not clear in Tolkien' is to imply that there is an objective question over what, exactly, is Good & what is Evil. Certainly there is a subjective question (if I may put it as awkwardly as that). In the conclusion to HDM any objective moral system, imposed from on high, is removed & it is down to individuals to determine what is Good & what is Evil, come to a consensus, & attempt to make that ideal a reality. In Tolkien's world Good & Evil are sharply defined by Eru. The individual's struggle is to do Good, not determine what, exactly Good is - what I mean is that it is for the individual to discover what (objectively existing) Good is, not to decide for themselves what is Good (which in all probability means what is good for them).

[Bêthberry]

As most of you can suspect from reading my posts on this thread, I am fascinated by the virulence of Pullman's attitude towards Tolkien, particularly since many of the journalists who interview him report qualities and traits to which Tolkien would not be adverse. And I am equally fascinated by the links davem provided which suggest that the central facet of the difference lies in differing perspectives of the nature of fantasy.

How very fitting for a solidly materialistic attitude towards realism for Pullman to have his story begin with Lyra discovering that, while her wardrobe is bigger than she first thought, it has but one way of exit, while for Lewis' Lucy, her wardrobe is, as Esty has noted, bigger on the inside than the out and has an alternate route. Lyra, boxed in her wardrobe, has no way to go but forward, as Pullman notes--not a loose plank nor a wobbly floorboard for the taking. What a perfect metaphor for his book! (Note too who pilfers some leaf in that first chapter. ;))

What a sad fate, that all that remains is to study in hopes of recovering a greater form of wisdom than first-grace. Not only is Pullman wrong about the sharp clarity of good and evil in Tolkien, as Mister Underhill suggests--yet powerful misreadings are often grounds for new creative endeavours--he is also, it seems to me, labouring under a sorry misconception that in adulthood and adult wisdom there is no metaphor, no imagination. Even more sad, I suspect he thinks that in science there is no metaphor. He labours under the old C.P. Snow division of two cultures, yet that characterisation has, I think, become a historical relic long left behind by theorists of science.

I am even more surprised by his great allusions to Blake. What manner of misreading Blake must he have to be such a determined materialist?

I find myself agreeing with Child's preference for Tolkien's civility while enjoying Pullman's inventiveness as Lal does. Yet all this bit about embarassment, self-consciousness, irony, it suggests a need for distance. But doesn't Tolkien himself have this distance in his humour? Tolkien had a very mischievous sense of humour. I wonder, does Pullman?

Some years ago, a philosophy professor told us all a story about meeting a world famous philosopher (he did not name the felon). The two, caught up in a moment of high hijinks late at night, decided to roll toilet paper out the window of the men's room. They were interrupted by the arrival of the janitor, a straight sort of fellow who recognised the eminent men and sputtered at them that people had reported someone rolling toilet paper out the window of the men's room. In reply, the eminent philosopher, caught one would think red-handed, agreed with the janitor that the actions were untoward. "I know, it's terrible," my professor claimed the philosopher said, "will you help us? We are trying to roll it back in." Now there's a fly-on-the-wall story for Tevildo!

I can't help but think that Tolkien would have relished that story. :D

[Lalwendë]

I daresay that this is too simplistic. A key theme of Tolkien's is of a desire to do good which ends in evil, great or small. You have the characters who are obviously deluding themselves, like Saruman, but then you also have Sam snapping at Gollum at a critical moment -- to help Frodo, but perhaps with the ultimate effect of tilting Gollum away from redemption forever. Good and evil are not so clear in Tolkien as Pullman would like to think they are.

I agree. At one level, our omnipotent level as the Reader, we can see what is good and evil in Middle-earth. We can see the goal, and we can see what types of behaviour will make the goal unreachable, more or less. We also have the Silmarillion and knowledge of Eru and Light and the ordered cosmos.

However, bringng this down to the level of say a Dunlending living in Middle-earth, do they have that knowledge? And even if they did, we have to look at their circumstances. Tolkien does not have a writerly wrath or rain of fire and brimstone on those who do not follow the 'correct' path as we see it. They do more or less get some kind of comeuppance at the end (that's a part of high fantasy, that the 'bad guy' gets a thrashing ;)), but Tolkien does this with a sense of sadness - e.g. the ends of Denethor, Gollum, Grima, even Saruman are all quite touching. He even has the Rohirrim treat those who died in the assault on Helm's Deep with the greatest respect.

Even the 'good guys' can go very, very wrong, such as Boromir, Aragorn's displays of arrogance, Sam's distrust of Gollum, Frodo's failure to resist the Ring, Galadriel's lust for power, Gandalf's temper etc. Now there's an interesting thing. Tolkien has lots of flawed characters, just like real world people! Some go the right way, some not. The characters do struggle over what is right and wrong. Frodo does, Sam does, Aragorn spends most of his time going down the Anduin worrying about what's the right thing to do.

I think Pullman is someone else who has let autobiographical details about Tolkien overshadow the actual text. He has seen the big red words Catholic! Christian! and has decided that of course, this must be a proselytising work. Hmm, interesting when many (most?) readers are not devout.

I can't remember anything in The Lord of the Rings, in all that vast epic of heroic battles and ancient magic, that titanic struggle between good and evil, that even begins to approach the ethical power and the sheer moral shock of the scene in Jane Austen's Emma when Mr Knightley reproaches the heroine for her thoughtless treatment of poor Miss Bates. Emma's mortification is one of those eye-opening moments after which nothing is the same. Emma will grow up now, and if we pay attention to what's happening in the scene, so will we. That's what realistic fiction can do, and what fantasy of the Tolkien sort doesn't. ...

This is not correct as any of us will know! How many truly shocking moments are there in the book?! Gollum's fall, Frodo's failure, Boromir's betrayal, Gandalf's fall (and return), and Eowyn's unrequited love? That last one, of all of them, really is shocking, and transcends traditional fantasy 'shock tactics', harking back to older myths, and touching on what ordinary people might experience.

I mean though, what's all this about 'growing up'? Is this the only issue that concerns any of us?!

[davem]

I find myself wondering if Pullman's fans take from the novel what he wants them to take? How many of them read it fro its 'undermining' of Fantasy, & how many for the same reason as they read Tolkien – for 'Escape'. It strikes me now that Pullman sees the ending of HDM as 'positive', even upbeat – people are liberated from an oppressive religious order, & can now make the world in their own image. Pullman wants his readers to close the book with positive feelings, but I suspect most of them don't. They end, perhaps, feeling exactly the way readers of LotR do – sad at the loss of Magic, in the knowledge that all there is now is the 'ordinary'. They long for what has been taken from them when what Pullman actually wants is for them to feel liberated.

I suspect that as many readers of Pullman as of Tolkien 'desire Dragons with a profound desire', & do not wish them only to 'serve reality'. One of the cruellest things Pullman does in HDM is have Lyra attacked by the Harpies for 'lying' in the world of the Dead. This is an attack on the human capacity for creative fantasy. Pullman is actually attempting to terrify his readers – particularly his child readers – into rejecting fantasy. In short he is telling them 'Always tell the absolute truth, state only the FACTS, or you'll go to hell & stay there. Fantasy is WRONG because it is not 'true' (ie it does not depict the world as being the way 'science' says it is).

What I find fascinating is that he sees Fantasy/the Imagination as an enemy, something that has to be controlled, beaten into submission, made to serve REALITY. Tolkien's philosophy seems much more about creating something beautiful simply for the sake of it (or as he would probably have put it as an act of 'worship'). One creates because one is created but also one creates for sheer joy of creating. Pullman's approach is much more puritanical – what we create must serve a practical purpose. Pullman offers us 'liberation' from an oppressive Church merely so that we can forget all that 'mumbo-jumbo' & get some bloody work done!.

[Lalwendë]

So Pullman is putting forward the Protestant Work Ethic? ;)

I suppose this is the danger of trying to get across a complex message in a clever way. People just might not get it. Or else they'll grossly misinterpret or even choose to ignore it.

I 'got' that he was having a pop at the Catholic church, but not having a pop at christianity/spirituality as a whole. Forming a 'Republic' of Heaven seems a bit Unitarian to me to be honest, in that it aimed to allow people to make their own choices rather than have them imposed by birth (by parents' religions), culture or by having to follow the rules to be included as part of a religion. Not so bad a concept in my view, though poorly articulated I thought. Blake does that kind of idea much better!

If he was trying to get young readers to reject fantasy then that badly misfired. He created some horribly evil and repellent adult characters, just the sort of people that children might find they need to retreat into childhood and childhood pursuits or indeed, fantasy, to escape.

He also created the Daemons, which while they might be read as physical manifestations of the Anima/Animus to some older readers, kids would read as simply really cool, amazing little cuddly friends. In the scenes where the scientists try to separate Daemon from child, i detect Pullman is making the point that kids should not be separated from fantasy and dreams at a young age. But by showing the adults who work there as almost zombie like with their obedient terrier like Daemons, who have actually been through some kind of 'separation process' he makes an odd point. Does he mean that the chruch makes adults like that by separating them from dreams/fantasy and filling their heads with notions of 'sin'?

It's all far too contradictory.

[Bêthberry]

It's all far too contradictory.

Or contrived? ;)


Embarrassment is often a sign that something important is happening: some revelation is taking place. The revelation is often signalled with red, the most alarming of colours: we blush. Darwin was fascinated by that: "Blushing," he said, "is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions." He believed that it has a social function, that it signals to other people that the individual who blushes is not to be trusted, because he or she has violated the mores of the group, or has even committed some crime.

And of course embarrassment was the very first consequence of the Fall in the third chapter of Genesis: "she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."


Such social Darwinism! I wonder if Pullman, who seems to favour science, has checked out any current medical or psychological research in personality theory.
And, frankly, I thought it was shame (a strong sense of ignomy, dishonour, unworthiness, disgrace) that drove Adam and Eve to clothe themselves, not simply embarassment or self-concsciousness/ill at easeness. :rolleyes:


Where literature is concerned, if you can make yourself look at things as calmly as you can, you eventually realise that phrases such as "he said" are actually a very good way of indicating who said what, and that the past tense is the natural storytelling tense, and that the business of writing narrative consists of thinking of some interesting events, putting them in the most effective order, and relating them as clearly as you can; and that the best place for the narrator is outside the story, telling it, and not inside the story drawing attention to his own self-consciousness.


Suuure. And so when he first describes an abduction of a child in HDM (Tony Makarios'), what is he doing when he resorts to the present tense? Or is he attempting to make that present tense conditional or subjunctive with the opener, "It would happen like this"?

It's quite amazing. The more I read Pullman's non-fiction prose, the less I like his fiction prose. And this is the opposite of my reading of Tolkien's non-fiction prose. Fascinating.

[davem]

I can't help wondering whether Pullman is attempting to make his fiction fit with his 'philosophy'. Its as if while writing he allows his imagination free reign, but when he 'analyses' it, he sees things in it which aren't actually there, or even imposes an opposing meaning on it.

His work doesn't seem to mean what he says it means. Many of his condemnations of Tolkien could be applied to his own work. I have to say that the essay was by another writer we couldn't take it seriously as an analysis of HDM. As I said, his position is hardly shared by most of his readers, as far as I can see, & it seems it is not shared by his 'Muse' - which is oddest of all. It seems that it is in the first volume that he allows his muse free rein, & that is by far the most successful (& absorbing) of the trilogy. It is in the final volume where he seems to have been able to impose his philosophy on the work, & that is the one that most readers find least convincing or entertaining. I can't help wondering if something happened half way through - even if that was simply that his imagination gave out. I note there was a long gap between the second & third volumes.

Whatever. It seems that what we see in Pullman is a clever writer of children's fiction who found his work being read (praised) by adults & started to take himself too seriously in response.

Whether he likes it or not HDM is read as a fantasy novel, & is being made into a fantasy film. We're told that the attack on organised religion is being toned down for the movie, the Death of God being turned into the end of an oppressive regime - in other words, the elements of HDM that Pullman plays up in his speeches & lectures will be pushed into the background in favour of what he considers the 'trivialities' (armoured bears & witches, etc). And guess what - none of his 'fans' will care as long as those 'trivialities' make it to the screen.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Some years ago, a philosophy professor told us all a story about meeting a world famous philosopher (he did not name the felon). The two, caught up in a moment of high hijinks late at night, decided to roll toilet paper out the window of the men's room. They were interrupted by the arrival of the janitor, a straight sort of fellow who recognised the eminent men and sputtered at them that people had reported someone rolling toilet paper out the window of the men's room. In reply, the eminent philosopher, caught one would think red-handed, agreed with the janitor that the actions were untoward. "I know, it's terrible," my professor claimed the philosopher said, "will you help us? We are trying to roll it back in." Now there's a fly-on-the-wall story for Tevildo!

Bethberry,

That is a great story!

I am wondering about something Davem said.

It seems that it is in the first volume that he allows his muse free rein, & that is by far the most successful (& absorbing) of the trilogy. It is in the final volume where he seems to have been able to impose his philosophy on the work, & that is the one that most readers find least convincing or entertaining.

I agree, but this brings up another issue. Despite the quote at the beginning of this thread, Pullman definitely spent more time complaining about Lewis than Tolkien. If you google "Pullman and Lewis", you get pages of intense argument with many Inklings backers going tooth and nail at Pullman. You don't see that same pattern if you google "Tolkien and Pullman". Pullman doesn't like Tolkien, but he is at least more "genteel" in his criticism.

In some ways, Pullman and Lewis can be accused of representing two sides of one coin... putting their personal philosophy ahead of the story itself. It is their similarity of method that makes them such natural "enemies", especially given that their views on religion are so different. I do like both authors and don't want to "bash" either of them (though I admittedly feel more comfortable with Lewis's argument than Pullman's).

Yet if there is some kind of continuum in place here, I see Pullman and Lewis on one end and Tolkien on the other. Lewis and Pullman insist on contemporary meaning -- there is no pure history or faery that does not carry a lesson. They must necessarily reduce or subordinate much of their world to that particular message. Tolkien, by contrast, is the one who can appreciate what is most "worthless" and "messy" and at the same time most glorious -- art that mirrors beauty and nature and the intricacies of the soul, with the lessons present but still secondary to the enormous complexities of life.

So who is actually more "realistic"--the writer who glories in the intricacies of a subcreated world, or the one whose empasis on a message (even if I agree with that message) necessarily simplifies what he sees and tells?

[davem]

Perhaps the difference between Pullman & Tolkien is in their view of the Universe itself. For Pullman it is a fantastic, awesome 'problem' to be solved, a mess to be tidied up & put in order (ie 'The Universe?'), whereas for Tolkien it is a fantastic, awesome work of (Divine) Art (ie 'The Universe!').

Pullman thinks he has the answer to the question – or at least knows the way to find the answer. Tolkien isn't even looking for an 'answer' because to him the Universe is not a 'problem'. It simply is. Tolkien is like a painter who sets down on canvas a wild meadow full of flowers. Pullman is the landscape gardener who comes along, sees the same meadow, & decides it should all be organised & made 'useful' by putting in flower beds, an ornamental fountain & a little café with swings & slides for the children. Fantasy must 'serve' reality, & 'reality' must 'serve' man.

Or perhaps we're dealing with something more like the incident in Leaf by Niggle, where the Inspector tells Niggle that he should have used his paint & canvas to repair Parish's roof, rather than painting silly pictures.

[Diamond18]

What balderdash. (Pullman.) He is entitled not to like Tolkien, but these continued pathetic attempts at discrediteding Tolkien and convincing people that he should not be enjoyed are just silly.

Back up a ways there was mentioned the Oedipal complex of Pullman wanting to kill his "father" in Tolkien, and wondering what then the "mother" he wanted to possess would be. Seems pretty clear the "mother" is the reading public. Pullman wants everyone to see things his way and the fact that Tolkien (who has different beliefs about the universe and different ways of putting together a story) is still very influential galls him.

That, or his arrogance is simply such that if he dislikes something he has to discredit it because heaven forbid anything he dislikes or disagrees with should be allowed to have merit. (Someone mentioned above that the reason he prefers Lewis is that he feels he could debate with Lewis but is at a loss when it comes to Tolkien -- and I think that's spot on.)

Either way, if I were to get a chance to speak to Pullman I'd tell him to bloody well get over it and get on with his life.

The fact of the matter is that Tolkien/LotR is not a bad author/book and not the be all end all, either. Tolkien's method is not the only good or right method, just as whatever method Pullman prefers is not the only and the right. The fact that many, many, many people have found depth and worth in Tolkien's books means there IS something there. It's not the same as "if everyone does it, it must be right" or "if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you too?" It's not, because we have reasonable, logical proof that there is depth, in the many intelligent, indepent-thinking human beings who can explain what depths they find. There are books exploring meanings, there are oodles of threads here and in other internet locations of people discussing the books and the characters. If Tolkien offered nothing of substance, we fans must be making it all up. Even then, the fact that he created a framework that fans can expound on so deeply speaks in his favor.

I also believe in the flip side of this coin, that sometimes Tolkien is over-analyzed and too much is read into it, or that it's glorified a bit too much, but all this really has more to do with reader approach than the book itself. Whatever other people think/thought of the books, I know that I enjoyed them a great deal, found them satisfying, etc. I find it rather insulting, really, that Pullman would try to convince me I was wrong to enjoy them, or that it was mindless of me to enjoy them. But then, there are a lot of things about Pullman's apparent worldview that I don't agree with and couldn't be persuaded to agree with, so that's another matter altogether.

I do know that all this makes me quite sure I never want to waste my time on HDM. :rolleyes:

[Mister Underhill]

I do know that all this makes me quite sure I never want to waste my time on HDM. Word. If Pullman is, at least in part, playing to some supposed audience with his Tolkien-bashing, then I ain't it. Like others in this thread, I'm fascinated by the burr he has under his saddle about the prof. You'd think he would rather be known for his creative work than for being a Tolkien pundit -- but then again maybe it just goes to show that his creative work is only a means for furthering his agenda rather than an end in itself.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I've spent quite some time over the last couple of days reading through the various dark materials that Philip Pullman links to on his site. It's interesting that he never voluntarily speaks about Tolkien at all, and about Lewis only when prompted. My guess is that, armed with the basic knowledge that Tolkien was a committed Christian and that Pullman is a determined agnostic with atheistic leanings, poor journalists see the opportunity to set two authors up against one another in the sort of childish war of words so beloved of the gutter press. I would have thought that Pullman was sufficiently sophisticated and intelligent to spot the obvious manipulation, but it's often hard to suppress the desire to say something quotable about something one doesn't like.

The grand irony is, of course, that much of what Pullman says about stories, particularly children's stories, sounds much as though Tolkien had said it. The same professorial false modesty that begins Tolkien's English and Welsh is evident in Pullman's lecture Miss Goddard's Grave, and they agree that no people are entirely good or evil. Aside from religious belief, the two men are really separated by false distinctions, which are all the more strictly enforced by Pullman because of his fear of being too like Tolkien. For example, in an obscure section of his rather pompous and self-important FAQ (http://www.philip-pullman.com/about_the_writing.asp), he explains his statement that he was not writing fantasy but stark reality thus: "What I mean by it was roughly this: that the story I was trying to write was about real people, not beings that don't exist like elves or hobbits." This is the only voluntary reference to Tolkien that I could find on his site, and it's basically a nonsense. Armoured bears and witches don't exist either, indeed in many ways Elves and Dwarves, which have a literary existence independent of Tolkien, are more grounded in reality than Iorek Bymison. Obviously His Dark Materials isn't actually about those characters, but neither is The Lord of the Rings purely about Hobbits. Speaking of warrior bears, I have my suspicions about the kinship between King Iorek and Tolkien's Beorn, but I can't be certain that they don't simply share a common inspiration. At any rate, both authors believed that a character who was all or part bear should have something of the ursine about him.

So, what does Philip Pullman really think? Who knows? He admits in one published interview (http://www.thirdway.org.uk/past/showpage.asp?page=3949) to making at least one comment just to be provocative; we know that journalists thrive on conflict, denunciation and indignation and we know that deep down Pullman is more like Tolkien than he might either realise or like to admit. That's a pretty good mixture of reasons why a man who doesn't seem to be particularly hung up on the issue is often quoted on it, particularly as controversy sells books. Big Read or no, His Dark Materials would have passed me by without notice had I not known that its author disagreed with me about Tolkien, and no doubt Random House are well aware of that effect. Then again, no author worth their salt wants to be 'the new Tolkien' or even 'the new Virgil'. A good author, when he thinks about public opinion at all, wants to be thought of as the original of himself. It's useful when seeking that end to express a violent antipathy towards the name most likely to be compared with one's own. In the end it's a form of rebellion, and Pullman is one of many people who likes Milton's portrayal of the arch-rebel Satan. I think that he has a problem with authority of any kind.

Almost certainly Philip Pullman genuinely doesn't like Tolkien, but I think that most of his dislike centres largely on those peripheral issues that always crop up in newspapers. It's not necessary to believe in God to appreciate the moral message of Tolkien's novels, nor is it necessary to believe in absolute monarchy or unimpeachable spiritual authority. Then again, I thought that Pullman's own fantasy hit failed to capture me because of its atheism and republicanism. Clearly there can be no Republic of Heaven, because Heaven is a concept which presupposes the existence and pre-eminence of God. Remove God and automatically one needs a different word for the world of the righteous dead. When the aim of the characters is an oxymoron, it's very hard to take the quest seriously. However, I've no doubt that Pullman thinks much the same of a quest to destroy the chief weapon of embodied evil.

Such niggling aside, I agree with a lot of what Philip Pullman says about a great many things, particularly about education and storytelling. I suspect that Tolkien would have agreed with him as well, and that's probably why it irks me so much to see these comments in print. He may be an agnostic, but Pullman's morals are Anglican morals; he may not believe in kings, but he believes in a good story. Tolkien also believed in the power of good stories. He also believed in intellectual freedom and the value of education. There is not really much to choose between them, with the exception that Pullman has an infinite capacity to bore me. It's a capacity that C.S. Lewis sometimes has, where the moral or message of the story has become apparent in the third paragraph or so, and the rest seems to belabour the point unnecessarily. When the message takes over, it's harder just to follow the story, and if one disagrees with the message then it becomes almost impossible to keep reading. It took me weeks to force my way through The Amber Spyglass, far longer than it normally takes me to read LR, because I was constantly in rebellion against the overpowering message that you can obtain Heaven by force or design it by committee.

Any suggestion of religious disagreement presupposes that Pullman has read enough Tolkien to be familiar with the religious undertones of his work, but I feel that with Pullman as with so many literary commentators, it's really the window-dressing to which he takes exception. Lots of things that don't exist appear in Middle-earth, including the worst faux pas of all, a physical embodiment of evil, and a lot of people feel that this is too simplistic an approach to moral questions. I assume that Pullman's experience of Tolkien was a single reading of all or some of The Lord of the Rings about four decades ago, and he's entitled not to think much of it. I think it's a shame that he allows himself to be quoted talking such rubbish about it, but journalists can be very clever at making someone say what they want them to say, and alcohol is always a useful tool on that sordid quest. There are more reasons than one for taking a fantasy author to the Eagle and Child.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Pullman's an over-rated and pretensious middlebrow who likes to insult better writers in order to appear as though he has something profound to say.

Camille Paglia has made a career of such twattle, and she's more entertaining.

[Lalwendë]

Pullman's an over-rated and pretensious middlebrow who likes to insult better writers in order to appear as though he has something profound to say.

Camille Paglia has made a career of such twattle, and she's more entertaining.

If only he could do a Thomas Pynchon and keep himself locked away and quiet.

HDM is, and I'll say it again, an amazing series of books, even if it does go astray at the end of the final volume. Why on earth he does what he does only he can say, and even then he does not explain or justify it very well. It's telling that the writers of Doctor Who took up a similar theme in the last series and then created the kind of ending that Pullman could/should have done.

Sadly its a common thing in modern fiction, the cruddy ending. I've got a lot of books I loved until I read the endings whihc were clumsy or drawn out or just plain anticlimaxes. A bit ironic really, considering the ill-judged criticism sometimes aimed at Tolkien that LotR was over long.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I've been reading the Extended Edition of Smith of Wootton Major, with comments and additional material, including a letter Tolkien wrote concerning a fairy tale by G. MacDonald. He did not appreciate the story much, though he did not say so publicly. What he said reminded me immediately of this discussion, and I would like to quote one sentence here: It is better anyway to preach by example than by criticism of others. It seems to me that it would have been wise for Pullmann to take that advice to heart...

[Roa_Aoife]

Yet if there is some kind of continuum in place here, I see Pullman and Lewis on one end and Tolkien on the other. Lewis and Pullman insist on contemporary meaning -- there is no pure history or faery that does not carry a lesson. They must necessarily reduce or subordinate much of their world to that particular message. Tolkien, by contrast, is the one who can appreciate what is most "worthless" and "messy" and at the same time most glorious -- art that mirrors beauty and nature and the intricacies of the soul, with the lessons present but still secondary to the enormous complexities of life.

However, Lewis never (to my knowledge) spoke against Tolkien's style. Nor did he ever insist that fantasy be a mere tool for conveying lessons; it was simply the path he took. Nor did he ever state that someone not using his method was wrong.


Pullman's reactions to Tolkien may be creating the opposite effect of his desire. As an analogy:

When the Iron Curtain fell in Russia and Communism's hold started to weaken, evangelists from many different religions went pouring into the country. For the most part, they expected a lot of resistance from a people who had been taught everyday in school that God did not exist. The evangelists were surprised when the people of Russia were eager to hear everything they had to say. When some remarked on this, the people replied that becuase the government tried so hard to convince them that Gid did not exist, then he must be real, or else they wouldn't have tried so hard. After all, if he wasn't real, why did the government keep bringing it up?

Perhaps Pullman is aware of the real nature and depth of Tolkien's work, but because it isn't used to answer a question, he doesn't want people to think of it as good fantasy, but as "spun candy" so that his own style will look better by comparison. After all, if Tolkien is just a candy fantasy, why would Pullman care?

[davem]

Perhaps Pullman is aware of the real nature and depth of Tolkien's work, but because it isn't used to answer a question, he doesn't want people to think of it as good fantasy, but as "spun candy" so that his own style will look better by comparison. After all, if Tolkien is just a candy fantasy, why would Pullman care?

It seems clear that Pullman has thought about Tolkien's work & feels it important to be able to define the differences between his own & Tolkien's work. I'm not sure that he has actually understood Tolkien's approach. For Pullman, it seems, for literature to be important it must serve some kind of didactic purpose. His dismissal of Tolkien seems to be down to the fact that Tolkien is not 'preaching' any kind of message. Yet this is odd in itself as part of his attack seems to be that in Tolkien's world there is a deity who defines Good & Evil & that the struggle the characters have is 'only' in finding the inner strength to do Good & not succumb to Evil. So, Tolkien's work is trivial because it has no message, no lesson to teach its readers, & at the same time it is 'wrong' because it has a clear moral structure.

It seems that for Pullman, as for all writers of fantasy, Tolkien is there . You have to respond to Tolkien in some way because you can't ignore him. What Pullman cannot do is pretend Tolkien doesn't exist. Perhaps that's why Pullman seeks to play down the fantastic elements of his own work & align himself with writers of 'serious' literature.

It seems that Pullman is trying to escape being classed with Tolkien & Lewis because he doesn't want to be associated with their (Christian) worldview. Yet he has written a novel in which God & the Church play a central role. Perhaps another interesting question, along the lines of 'Why does Pullman not simply ignore Tolkien & Lewis if he has no time for them?' would be 'Why does he not simply ignore God if he has no time for Him?'. I suspect the answer is that, whatever his personal feelings about Tolkien & about God, neither can be ignored, & some acknowledgement of, & response to, them is necessary.

[Lush]

Great thread.

I love Pullman. Church, sex, beauty - he stirs the elements in quite nicely. He's a cranky provocateur who believes that the world is going to the Dark Age-dogs of fanaticism, and I agree, at least partially.

Having said that, I think Pullman misses out on the brooding lyricism of Tolkien, a roomy style of writing that elicits the most startling emotional/intellectual responses. Tolkien's visions are large, considering the way they inspire hardcore Christians, faerie-seekers, and even hedonistic pleasure-readers.

You gotta give credit where credit is due, but I think Pullman has struggled so much with his own art that he's not at that point yet. Maybe I'm projecting onto Pullman, who knows. I adore the guy. I put him on a pedestal and fetishize his style, I'm going to admit that now so nobody accuses me of solipsism later on.

Oh, and this is slightly off-topic, but


When the Iron Curtain fell in Russia and Communism's hold started to weaken, evangelists from many different religions went pouring into the country. For the most part, they expected a lot of resistance from a people who had been taught everyday in school that God did not exist. The evangelists were surprised when the people of Russia were eager to hear everything they had to say. When some remarked on this, the people replied that becuase the government tried so hard to convince them that Gid did not exist, then he must be real, or else they wouldn't have tried so hard. After all, if he wasn't real, why did the government keep bringing it up?

That's too rosy a picture. The Eastern Orthodox Church is a millennia-old institution, and when the Curtain came down, the local denizens of faith were vehemently set against any sort of foreign evangelicals. There was a conflict there about the True God, and it still rages on. Even dancing dervishes are considered some sort of "cult" by the Moscow Patriarchate (am not sure about Ukraine's Filaret & Co., or anyone else, I think they're a little less hardcore though).

People who agreed there is no God, or no True Religion sat back and laughed while the faith-based groups duked it out. Freedom of religion isn't any easier on the Former Soviet Empire, although it might seem so at the outset.

So maybe Pullman isn't interested in proving anything, maybe he just watches religious folk struggle against each other and laughing into his fist. ;)

[Roa_Aoife]

That's too rosy a picture. The Eastern Orthodox Church is a millennia-old institution, and when the Curtain came down, the local denizens of faith were vehemently set against any sort of foreign evangelicals. There was a conflict there about the True God, and it still rages on. Even dancing dervishes are considered some sort of "cult" by the Moscow Patriarchate (am not sure about Ukraine's Filaret & Co., or anyone else, I think they're a little less hardcore though).

Both pictures are correct. Your picture is depressing, mine is rosy- combine and we have the actuality. That wasn't really the point though. I was using an anology, not a history lesson.

So maybe Pullman isn't interested in proving anything, maybe he just watches religious folk struggle against each other and laughing into his fist.

Given his reaction to Lewis and Tolkien, and his attempt at attacking the Church in his novels, not to mention pushing his ideas of how things should be, I somehow doubt this is the case.

[Lush]

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 think Pullman (lest anyone thought I was getting horribly off-topic) sees all this on a larger scale, and is aghast. He was very vehement toward the Slavs & their Church in HDM (Interesting that you should bring up Russia, which by, the way, is only a part of what was behind the Iron Curtain), using the old "vodka" cliche left and right. This was something I didn't appreciate, but I could relate to his frustration with barbarism disguised as spirituality. Pullman engages the ugly quite nicely, maybe too nicely (hence the obvious break with the lyrical Tolkien, in my opinion). He knows what these little religious spats can amount to - blood and gore.

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.

Furthermore, I don't think Pullman is doing this because, as you said, "the lady doth protest too much." I think he's onto something. His categorical nature prevents me from agreeing with him on everything. I think the tradition his insults is the tradition he owes a lot to, including Tolkien & Christianity. However, the way he shatters old taboos is a good lesson for any aspiring writer wanting to do his or her own thing.

[Lush]

Oh, and, with apologies to everyone who's totally uninterested in Pullman & the Slavs (those passages are wroth revisiting if Pullman's religious criticisms are to be understood, IMHO),

I find it really, really heartening when foreigners (I'm assuming you're foreign) have something positive to say about spirituality in E. Europe, Roa. I just see very little real positive effect. The Fall did more damage than us freedom-lovers (myself included) would usually like to admit.

[davem]

I don't think anyone would argue that the Church has not done wrong throughout the last two thousand years. It has also done good. Pullman's position seems to be that the bad the Church has done is a reflection of its true nature, that it is inherently 'evil', & that the good has been almost accidental, & that people would have done that good regardless.

This comes from his understanding of human nature. Pullman clearly believes that human beings are by nature good & are corrupted by superstition. I see no evidence for this being the case, & I don't see that Pullman offers any supporting evidence in his books or statements. Tolkien clearly believes the opposite - that Man is fallen & needs to be redeemed, 'saved' by God (or His emissaries). Suffice to say I see no evidence offered by Tolkien to support this position either. Pullman creates a Secondary World in which his view of human nature is shown to be obvious (it is never questioned by the author or any of his characters). Tolkien likewise.

The issue, then, is the quality of the works themselves, their quality as Art. For me, Tolkien succeeds where Pullman fails, because Tolkien's Art is 'pure' - it is not in the service of the author's 'message'. Tolkien does not seek to convince his readers of anything other than the 'reality' of the Secondary World he has created. Pullman, however, has an agenda. His Secondary world exists in order to sway the reader to his worldview. He wants to make the reader see the Primary world in the way he himself sees it. HDM is a politico-philosophical manifesto, not simply a work of Art. I think because of this we should expect Pullman to back up what he says, & actually are obliged to challenge his position.

The situation as regards Tolkien is different. Tolkien has no desire to persuade his readers of anything. He is simply telling a story to entertain & move us. He does not want us change our beliefs about the world. Whatever we find in LotR is purely down to 'applicability' What we 'find' in LotR is down to us, what we take from it back into the Primary is down to us. Pullman, on the other hand, wants us to find, & take back with us, something very specific. The Church is an evil organisation - not just in Lyra's world, but also in Will's (our) world. Mary Malone, the 'enlightened' Nun has 'seen through' Christianity. The 'God' that dies of senility in HDM is God, not an Eru figure. Pullman is attacking Primary world religion & saying the Primary world would be better off without God & the Church. And his intention is that his readers 'see the light'.

[Lush]

This comes from his understanding of human nature. Pullman clearly believes that human beings are by nature good & are corrupted by superstition.

Quoi?

Could you expand on that please?

Because at this point, I'm not sure that I agree. Lyra's father was not particularly superstitious, as I recall, and he was a very ruthless man.

[Lush]

Pullman, however, has an agenda. His Secondary world exists in order to sway the reader to his worldview.

Yes, but I've discovered that if you like said agenda, you have less of a problem with it aesthetically. Christopher Hitchens, for example, is a huge fan of Pullman's work. :cool:

[Bêthberry]

This comes from his understanding of human nature. Pullman clearly believes that human beings are by nature good & are corrupted by superstition.


Hmmm. Lyra is repeatedly described as a liar; her stories and tales are similar to the "stretchers' which Mark Twain has his boys tell. Pullman even pronounces the name "Lie-ra" rather than, as I had assumed, 'Leera.' The children's games are presented not as simple play but as "war". For instance, the capture of the gyptians' boat could have had extremely serious consequences. The game Lyra plays of switching the coins which represent the dead daemons is also cruel--or at least thoughtless. For all of Lyra's eagerness to save her 'uncle' from the poison--that, too, I think, is presented more as a desire to partake of adventure--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. Look at how easily Lyra falls for Mrs Coulter at that first dinner and ignores boring old Dame Hannah. And look at how much her attitude towards Dame Hannah has changed by the final chapter. There's a moral development as significant as that of Austen's Emma. What redeems Lyra, saves her, are her experiences. She learns and she learns fast.

And I don't have any sense that Lyra has particularly been indoctrinated at Jordan, although she clearly understands the rituals of the college and its life. If anything, she has had the glorious advantage of having more freedom, more play, than most girls.

[Lush]

Lyra is repeatedly described as a liar;

Lyra the liar! Ahaha! Brilliant. Almost as good as "the right to bear arms" reversed into "the right to arm bears" (or so Hitchens suggests).

Pullman is brilliant in his wordplay. He's the Nabokov of the genre. Wry and unsentimental, not a gentle creature at all. Maybe this is why Tolkien irritates him so much.

[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…..

[Lush]

Yeah, I give up.

P.S. Pullman's a genius. Albeit a cranky one.

[davem]

Quoi?

Could you expand on that please?

Because at this point, I'm not sure that I agree. Lyra's father was not particularly superstitious, as I recall, and he was a very ruthless man.

I should have put superstition in quotes. I was referring to the way that Pullman presents religion & its manifestation, the Church, as corrupting, & it is corrupting not because humans are fallen & so everything they create will have an element of 'fallenness' in it, but because 'God' & the Angelic hierarchies are corrupt.

As to whether Lyra & the other children are 'innocent' - I'd say they absolutely are. They are neither Good nor Evil. They have not yet eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, hence all their actions are morally neutral (& thus morally worthless). Lyra can't be condemned for the bad she does or praised for the good she does, because she herself is not doing either 'good' or 'bad' things. She mostly just 'does' things for the sake fo doing them. Hence her declaration at the end of the story that she now has to start actually doing things for a reason - helping others, studying, building a better world.

Point is, in Pullman's world people are born morally 'neutral' (ie 'unfalllen') & have to discover for themselves what is Good & what is Bad. But first they have to liberate themselves from the 'superstition' of religious belief, because in Pullman's view all religion is corrupting.

Now, as I said. That may be absolutely correct. And if Pullman was writing a novel about a self-contained secondary world (which M-e is, for all Tolkien's statements about it being set in a hiistorical period of our world) that would be fine & we could leave it there. However, Pullman sets his novel partly in our world, & so is making statements about the religions (principally Christianity) & the God of our world. So, he is throwing his hat into the ring. If he makes statements about the way our world works, about a religio-philosophical system which has shaped the Western World (for good or ill) he should be able to back them up.

In the interview which Squatter linked to earlier Pullman states:

Jesus, like many of the founders of great religions, was a moral genius, and he set out a number of things very clearly in the Gospels which if we all lived by them we’d all do much better. What a pity the Church doesn’t listen to him!

Now, first of all, to say that the Church doesn't listen to Jesus is idiotic as well as untrue. The main point though is that Pullman never states anywhere (as far as I know) what, in his opinion, Jesus was actually 'setting out'. As Lewis pointed out you can't take that easy option of saying Jesus was a nice guy who taught his followers to be nice guys. Yes, Jesus told his followers to love their enemies & perform acts of charity, but he also told his followers he was the Son of God, & that he would die to save them from Hell.

Point being, Pullman's view of Christianity is as simplistic as his view of fantasy. Its all very well to claim in that same interview 'I say a lot of things just to be provocative.' but you have to be able to back up 'provocative' statements, or be prepared to come clean & state 'I was lying', or 'I made it up so you'd pay attention to me'.

[Bêthberry]

This comes from his understanding of human nature. Pullman clearly believes that human beings are by nature good & are corrupted by superstition.


As to whether Lyra & the other children are 'innocent' - I'd say they absolutely are. They are neither Good nor Evil. They have not yet eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, hence all their actions are morally neutral (& thus morally worthless).

Forgive my misunderstanding. To me, there is a vast difference between saying "human beings are by nature good" and they are "innocent", which is again different from saying "morally neutral."

In Christianity, good and evil derive from the perfection of God and the absence of Him, respectively. Evil is, like sin, a privation or separation from God, a deficiency. In the ethical system which absents God, the question is to determine how to go about determining good and evil, which gets us a very long way from Tolkien and spun candy. ;)



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

The applicable point here is not the personal experience of early childhood educators or parents or teachers, but the depiction in the texts. Sorry if this point wasn't clear.


It is better anyway to preach by example than by criticism of others.

Clearly a great deal of Tolkien's habits and manners grew out of his moral vision. An argument which is counter to charity would, I think, in his eyes, be similar to the sin of scandal (inciting or inducing others to sin) in that it exists merely to prove wrong rather than to demonstrate right. In other words, if you speak up only to pull down, if ya can't add sumthin' good, don't add it at all.

That said, I probably should reiterate my agreement with Lal that I find Pullman's creation fascinating even if unsatisfactory at times. I think he is trying to articulate a vision of fantasy which does not look back, but which looks around at the present or towards the future. Even Tolkien gave up writing post-Third Age.

[davem]

Forgive my misunderstanding. To me, there is a vast difference between saying "human beings are by nature good" and they are "innocent", which is again different from saying "morally neutral."

Yeah - I wasn't clear there. The first statement was my understanding of how Pullman sees things ('Pullman clearly believes ..'), the second was my personal interpretation of the character's behaviour ('I'd say..').

My reason for saying that Pullman believes human beings are essentially good is that he believes that once 'liberated' from the Church they will be able to create a perfect world (the Republic of Heaven). They are ignorant but in essence have the capacity to create Heaven on earth.

Point is, in Pullman's world people are born morally 'neutral' (ie 'unfalllen') & have to discover for themselves what is Good & what is Bad. But first they have to liberate themselves from the 'superstition' of religious belief, because in Pullman's view all religion is corrupting.

Is again my interpretation of the work. My feeling is that Pullman believes that there is a core of good in each being which must be 'awakened', whereas in my reading of the work they are morally neutral - which is one reason why I am not convinced by his conclusion. I see nothing in the story to make be believe that any of the characters have the capacity to create a perfect world. Pullman clearly does.

[Bêthberry]

Yeah, I give up.


Pity, dear, as I always enjoy your posts, even if I disagree with them. :)

I, too, am disappointed by the implications of Susan's depiction. There's a very strong, horrible tradition in western culture denigrating any form of female sexuality and it's a shame that Lewis, with his love for Joy Davidman and his great learning from her, went this ambiguous route that is so open to such an interpretation. But we are all allowed our interpretations.


Is again my interpretation of the work. My feeling is that Pullman believes that there is a core of good in each being which must be 'awakened', whereas in my reading of the work they are morally neutral - which is one reason why I am not convinced by his conclusion. I see nothing in the story to make be believe that any of the characters have the capacity to create a perfect world. Pullman clearly does.

I must begin by saying that I have read HDM only once and not given it the depth of consideration which you have, so my thoughts are clearly less measured. That said, I'm not sure about this core of good which must be 'awakened'.

True that if we take Pullman at his word that every person must, in himself and herself, experience a "fall" from innocence, then it follows that this initial stage, if it is in keeping with the religious traditions of fall which Pullman and Milton worked in, must be some form of guileless, candid, uncorrupted state unaware of the knowledge of good and evil. (Wait, it's been so long since I read Milton that I'm not sure this applies. I mainly remember that he thought Eve was a great cook and he really loved epic similes.) Pullman would then reject the concept of original sin and believe that good can be drawn out of people.

However, if Pullman as an agnostic or possible atheist believes in evolution, then the question is, I think more murky. This particularly relates to the idea that humans have daemons, animal forms of alternate identities. If people have evolved, where or when does the ethical question of good and evil come into existence? Is it there in bacteria? Or does it evolve as cell division becomes more complex and sophisticated? Is the ethical form of human existence only something that is learned? Must human beings learn not to harm others in the pursuit of their own desires, for instance? This seems to me to be one way to interprete Lyra and the trilogy's conclusion and it is an evolutionary rather than an absolute question.

The daemons are, I think, central to understanding Pullman's conception of human identity. I relate this back to Lyra's behaviour as a child. Even if we grant, as davem does, that such behaviour is morally neutral, I think that, in giving Lyra a name which highlights her guile and her lack of candor and straightforwardness, Pullman may in fact be suggesting that human nature is not essentially good, but that goodness must be earned at a cost.

In short, I'm not convinced that this "republic of heaven" necessarily implies a perfect world here on whichever planet of whichever dimension we exist in, but rather the world which grants to humans the greatest possibility of ethical behaviour.

Again, I think back to Tolkien. He worked within a concept of a fallen world, of human beings who always and inevitably fail. And he eventually decided not to write about the fourth age, or a fifth age, or a sixth age, or a seventh.

What does someone whose imagination is given over to these later ages do? Is there no hope?

[Lush]

Now, first of all, to say that the Church doesn't listen to Jesus is idiotic as well as untrue.

Actually, I completely agree with Pullman on this one. Although perhaps you've (and or Tolkien :p ) had better experiences in that department.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Regarding the depiction of Susan in the Narnia tales....

These stories were written before Lewis became involved with Joy. Even as a young girl reading the stories, I had trouble with his portrayal of the maturing Susan. Till We Have Faces , which was written after his marriage, reveals that Lewis had learned a great deal about women. His portrayal of the two sisters is, in my opinion, his very best handling of female characters.

[Lalwendë]

However, if Pullman as an agnostic or possible atheist believes in evolution, then the question is, I think more murky. This particularly relates to the idea that humans have daemons, animal forms of alternate identities. If people have evolved, where or when does the ethical question of good and evil come into existence? Is it there in bacteria? Or does it evolve as cell division becomes more complex and sophisticated? Is the ethical form of human existence only something that is learned? Must human beings learn not to harm others in the pursuit of their own desires, for instance? This seems to me to be one way to interprete Lyra and the trilogy's conclusion and it is an evolutionary rather than an absolute question.

The daemons are, I think, central to understanding Pullman's conception of human identity. I relate this back to Lyra's behaviour as a child. Even if we grant, as davem does, that such behaviour is morally neutral, I think that, in giving Lyra a name which highlights her guile and her lack of candor and straightforwardness, Pullman may in fact be suggesting that human nature is not essentially good, but that goodness must be earned at a cost.

I thought that the daemons were meant to represent the anima/animus. Female characters have male daemons, males have females. Also daemons are not fixed until characters approach emotional maturity - Lyra's daemon becomes fixed when she is in love with Will. Possibly Pullman means this has something to do with first love fixing 'ideals' in the mind or that only when the Daemon is fixed we can begin to look 'outside' ourselves and to other people.

I'm not sure if the actual creatures that Daemons become are significant in this respect - Lord Asriel has his snow leopard, which sounds fitting, but how do the little obedient terrier daemons belonging to the staff at the research centre fit with this idea? What does that say about what has happened to these adults? And what does it say about the poor children who are severed from their daemons?

[Bêthberry]

I thought that the daemons were meant to represent the anima/animus. Female characters have male daemons, males have females. Also daemons are not fixed until characters approach emotional maturity - Lyra's daemon becomes fixed when she is in love with Will. Possibly Pullman means this has something to do with first love fixing 'ideals' in the mind or that only when the Daemon is fixed we can begin to look 'outside' ourselves and to other people.

I'm not sure if the actual creatures that Daemons become are significant in this respect - Lord Asriel has his snow leopard, which sounds fitting, but how do the little obedient terrier daemons belonging to the staff at the research centre fit with this idea? What does that say about what has happened to these adults? And what does it say about the poor children who are severed from their daemons?

Anima is a likely explanation, but as I said in a post above, I've read HDM only once and haven't deeply pondered all its implications. I suppose one would have to know Jung very well to be able to say--or accept Pullman's word for it. I can't help but think of Tolkien's comment that one of the consolations of fantasy (or profound desires which fantasy can satisfy ) is to communicate with animals. It is fascinating to me that Pullman creates these alternate selves or identities that are animals. What is it like to live with another self that is, quite literally, a beast? The narrator does, after all, describe Lyra in childhood as a "half-wild cat."

There is that statement that all servants have dæmons who are dogs, so from that I assume there is some kind of relationship between adult form and the human's personality. Does this relate to the researcher's terriers?

While we see strongly the relationship between humans and their dæmons, I don't think we often are privilege to the dæmons' own thoughts--I could be wrong about this, but one incident stands out to me. When the gyptians kill the men who had caught Lyra, Pan squirms around with great curiosity to see what happens to their dæmons. That I found really poignant. Imagine your fate tied to the life span of another creature.

[davem]

I'm not sure how far the Daemons=the Anima/Animus idea can be pushed. In Jungian theory the Anima/Animus is described as being (in appearance) the 'contra-sexual image'. In other words, for a man it will take the form of a woman & for a woman the form of a man. It may appear in some circumstances as an animal or an object (ie, a cat or the Moon/the Sea for the Anima) but this would be quite a rare occurence.

Pullman's daemons seem rather to reflect an aspect of the individual's personality, or even to symbolise the person's character/essential nature. Yet they are more than that, as they seem as well to have a separate personality/intelligence of their own. Either their true nature is very complex, the characters are seriously schizoid, or Pullman hasn't thought the idea through. Taking these options one at a time, we'd have to say, a) If the Daemons are merely 'symbols' they shouldn't have a separate consciousness, or feel emotions the individual does not feel, & certainly shouldn't know anything the individual doesn't; b) If they do have a separate consciousness this implies a 'split personality' & further implies that the individuals in Lyra's world are all psychotic; & c) if Pullman hasn't thought the idea through it wouldn't surprise me at all.

[Bêthberry]

a) If the Daemons are merely 'symbols' they shouldn't have a separate consciousness, or feel emotions the individual does not feel, & certainly shouldn't know anything the individual doesn't; b) If they do have a separate consciousness this implies a 'split personality' & further implies that the individuals in Lyra's world are all psychotic; & c) if Pullman hasn't thought the idea through it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Oh dear. Aren't they supposed to be souls? Embodied souls? I'm sure there's a section where this is stated clearly. Just after Lyra and Iorek find the severed child Tony?

[davem]

Oh dear. Aren't they supposed to be souls? Embodied souls? I'm sure there's a section where this is stated clearly. Just after Lyra and Iorek find the severed child Tony?

Well, you can use the word 'soul' but don't you have to define what you mean by it? If an individual in a world without a True deity has a 'soul' what is its nature, how does it function & what is its relationship to the individual's ego? Is such a 'soul' immortal?

Using the word 'soul' doesn't help us understand the nature of the Daemons at all. If we replaced the word 'daemon' in my last post with 'soul' I think all my points would still stand – if anything it introduces even more problems. Pullman seems as vague as regards 'souls' as he is as regards 'Heaven'.

[davem]

And now for a word or two from Michael Moorcock (http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=953#).

[Roa_Aoife]

*sigh* Some people just can't appreciate a good story.... (More later, busy now)

[Bêthberry]

And now for a word or two from Michael Moorcock (http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=953#).

Moorcock is a far more formidable person and SF authority. It is interesting to see how he examines the context and implications of stories. Tolkien said that it was the experience of war, of the trenches and the conditions of the Battle of the Somme, which birthed his sense of fantasy, and I think--I could be wrong about this--he suggested that this sense of fantasy was shared with other soldiers. Was fantasy supplying something in the absence of hope? Perhaps this is different merely in tone from Moorcock, who sees a taste for this kind of epic fantasy as deriving from a moribund middle class who cannot look forward.

A starting point for discussion. ;)

I really like Doug Potter's illustrations. They're a hoot!

[davem]

More from Mr M. http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/Moorcock1.htm

As far as I'm aware neither Pullman nor Moorcock have been through the kind of experience Tolkien had on the Somme. Don't know if this is at all relevant, but it occurs to me that they would both be freer in their analysis of evil, not having seen it face to face – both Pullman & Moorcock have the luxury of playing with evil, with the idea of the devil as Byronic rebel against authority. Tolkien simply couldn't do that, due both to his wartime experiences & his religious background. His wartime experiences & the loss of his mother & his childhood idyll in Sarehole were obviously behind the 'idealisation' of the countryside, while his years in industrialised Birmingham were the cause of his hatred of industrialisation. Of course his personal experiences & beliefs would have shaped his fiction. Moorcock & Pullman miss the essential point that Tolkien could not have written in any other style or about any other subject in any other way. Their comments not only attempt to invalidate his work, but to invalidate his life & experiences as well. In short, what both are saying is that he should have shut the hell up, that if his life & his experiences meant he could only write what he did, he shouldn't have written anything at all.

[The Saucepan Man]

Their comments not only attempt to invalidate his work, but to invalidate his life & experiences as well. In short, what both are saying is that he should have shut the hell up, that if his life & his experiences meant he could only write what he did, he shouldn't have written anything at all.No they are not. They are merely expressing their opinion. As have you, concerning Pullman's works.

I am not surprised that these fantasy authors have expressed their opinion on Tolkien, given his standing within the genre. Particularly so in Pullman's case, given that it seems to be the frst question that journalists ask him (and as Bb, I think, points out, journalistic reporting of his response may not be the most reliable source of his views). They are entitled to express their opinion and to provide justification for that opinion, particularly when asked, and they are fully entitled to dislike Tolkien's works. Surprisingly ( ;) ), it's not illegal to do so. I know many people to whom they do not appeal at all.

While I admire the works of both Pullman and (particularly) Moorcock myself, I do nevertheless find myself slightly at odds with their arguments, as expressed here. They both appear to take the approach that there is a particular way to write a fantasy/SF novel, namely the approach that each of them adopts. That assumes that all readers are looking (or should be looking) for the same thing in a novel, a stance with which I fundamentally disagree. It would be a dull world indeed if we were all to share the same tastes. It is difficult, I think, to make a qualitative assessment of differing authorial styles in a world where even the poorest writers (poorest, that is, in my opinion) can garner mass appeal.

Moorcock's arguments are to my mind the most compelling, being the more developed. I partly agree with him with regard to Tolkien's literary style, from a "technical literary" perspective. But, then again, technical expertise in the literary field is not always sufficent (or even necessary) to win the hearts and minds of readers, or indeed (as I have said) to garner mass appeal. I also partly agree with Moorcock's view on why tales such as LotR are so popular, but perhaps that is because I lean rather towards some of the characteritics that he defines in a Tolkien (and Pooh) reader, and unashamedly so. :D

Pullman's argument, in my view, is less convincing, although that is perhaps because we only have it secondhand. On that basis, what he fails to appreciate, I think, is that readers can enjoy his works purely as entertaining reads without feeling the need to identify, much less identify with, his "message", while other readers can find much meaning in Tolkien's works. On that level, his works are no different from those produced by Tolkien. It all comes down, again, to what appeals to the individual reader. (Do I hear echoes of the dreaded C-thread :eek: .)

My enjoyment of Pullman's trilogy primarily derives from my reaction to them as entertaining reads, and for many years I approached LotR on the same basis. I can discuss messages, authorial intent and the like. I think that both can provoke serious thought on the human condition. But I prefer to read them as enjoyable tales. As it happens, on an intellectual level, I find Pullman's view of human nature and good/evil the more acceptable, far morseo than Tolkien, whereas it is Tolkien who touches me at a deeper, more instinctive, level.

I have no issue with the basic premise behind the struggle depicted in Pullman's trilogy. Where, however, I do find him open to criticism, is in his attempt to portray this struggle as an all-encompassing one spanning the entire universe across multiple dimensions. It seems to me that he over-reaches himself and so loses credibility. My complaint about the latter parts of his trilogy, therefore, is more a technical one than a philosophical one. Tolkien, on the other hand, developed only one world, and concentrated in detail only on certain parts of it, both temporally and geographically. His works, therefore, come across to me as far more convincing (and thus engaging).

Overall, however, I find it refreshing occasionally to hear the views of those who do not regard Tolkien as the best thing since sliced bread, and I think it entirely proper (and indeed healthy) that those views be expressed, particularly when they are expressed intelligently and coherently (whether we agree with them or not), and especially on a Tolkien board such as this one.

[davem]

No they are not. They are merely expressing their opinion. As have you, concerning Pullman's works.

But surely the 'opinion' they are expressing is as I stated?

[The Saucepan Man]

But surely the 'opinion' they are expressing is as I stated?No. You ascribe to them motives and desires which I do not think are justified by their opinions, as stated, at all, and you are attacking them on the basis of your interpretation of what they mean, rather than on the basis of their stated opinions.

[Bêthberry]

Of course his personal experiences & beliefs would have shaped his fiction. Moorcock & Pullman miss the essential point that Tolkien could not have written in any other style or about any other subject in any other way. Their comments not only attempt to invalidate his work, but to invalidate his life & experiences as well. In short, what both are saying is that he should have shut the hell up, that if his life & his experiences meant he could only write what he did, he shouldn't have written anything at all.

I don't think they are saying this, not Moorcock at least. Apparently, he met both Tolkien and Lewis in person and liked them as people.

What I think Moorcock is reacting to--and I agree with Sauce here that they have a right to express their opinion--is the depiction of fantasy as an escapist form of literature that glories a past. There are others who, when faced with the kind of experiences Tolkien's generation faced, did not look back but envisioned a different future. I don't think Moorcock is invalidating Tolkien's experiences so much as saying something about England.

I note that Moorcock no longer lives in England. He moved to Texas and apparently is thinking of dividing his time in France as well. He clearly has a frustration with what he perceives as the direction of English culture and society and I suspect that he feels Tolkien et al part of this. I really want to read Mervyn Peake now and compare him to Tolkien, to see if there is this juxtapostion which Moorcock suggests.


They both appear to take the approach that there is a particular way to write a fantasy/SF novel, namely the approach that each of them adopts. That assumes that all readers are looking (or should be looking) for the same thing in a novel, a stance with which I fundamentally disagree.

This is the point where I also tend to part company with Moorcock. The discussion of what fantasy is or what do readers of fantasy seek is interesting, I think, but like all literary manifestos, can overstate the case or overstep boundaries. I think it is refreshing to have one's sometimes unconscious or unexamined habits questioned and challenged. And even our conscious thoughts. I find absolute adoration of Tolkien--or of any writer--tedious and counterproductive in terms of helping me appreciate the writer.

[The Saucepan Man]

I find absolute adoration of Tolkien--or of any writer--tedious and counterproductive in terms of helping me appreciate the writer.Amen to that. I thoroughly agree, and I also find it counterproductive in terms of helping me to appreciate the writer's works. The more I hear how perfect and immaculate Tolkien was as a writer, the less inclined I am to delve into his tales again. He remains my favourite author, and I know that I will find myself once more immersed in his works when I do pick them up, but his works are not, in my eyes at least, above criticism. That's why it is refreshing, for once, to read an intelligent and thought-provoking critique of his style (as exemplified, in my view, by Moorcock's essay).

While there are some very well-expressed arguments made here against Pullman’s position, and I have no problem with that, there is also a slight undertone of “how dare he criticise Tolkien?”, an approach which automatically reacts against him simply because he does so. Fact is that there are an awful lot of people who do not respond to Tolkien’s works in the way that we do, and there is nothing wrong with that. To react against Pullman simply on the basis that he dislikes Tolkien, or dares to criticise him, or holds a different philosophical position from him (or you) is to make the same mistake that both Pullman and Moorcock make in assuming that their way is the “best”.

[davem]

I think Moorcock is reacting to--and I agree with Sauce here that they have a right to express their opinion--is the depiction of fantasy as an escapist form of literature that glories a past. There are others who, when faced with the kind of experiences Tolkien's generation faced, did not look back but envisioned a different future. I don't think Moorcock is invalidating Tolkien's experiences so much as saying something about England.

I don't think Tolkien's work could be described as 'as an escapist form of literature that glories a past', certainly not in the simplistic sense Moorcock implies. If anything John Garth's theory re the Somme - that Tolkien in writing the Fall of Gondolin – was seeing the world & the horrors of war 'through enchanted eyes' is much nearer the truth. Both Moorcock & Pullman are misrepresenting Tolkien's works & attitude in order (particularly in Moorcock's case) to attack something else (the 'British Establishment' , the 'old school tie', British Imperialism or whatever). I think Moorcock has actually set up an Aunt Sally in both cases. His conception of 'English' culture is as wrong as his conception of Tolkien.

While there are some very well-expressed arguments made here against Pullman’s position, and I have no problem with that, there is also a slight undertone of “how dare he criticise Tolkien?”, an approach which automatically reacts against him simply because he does so.

No-one has taken the approach of attacking Pullman simply because he criticises Tolkien as far as I've read on this thread. We've attacked him because his criticisms have been ignorant, uniformed or simply insulting.

[The Saucepan Man]

No-one has taken the approach of attacking Pullman simply because he criticises Tolkien as far as I've read on this thread.I am not going to pick out any names, but that is not the impression that I get, reading this thread.

Actually, I will pick out one name ...

We've attacked him because his criticisms have been ignorant, uniformed or simply insulting.It is this kind of prejorative language that gives the impression of an overly-defensive, knee-jerk reaction against someone who is daring to criticise Tolkien. As far as I can recall, the only material available on this thread setting out Pullman's views on Tolkien are those reported by journalists. That's hardly a sound basis for the kind of asessment of him that you are making. And, even if they are accurate, I thoroughly disagree with your characterisation of them. You can engage intellectually, philosophically and even emotionally with his arguments and provide reasons why you disagree with them (as you have quite properly done). But to label him ignorant and insulting simply because you disagree with him is, to my view, wrong.

[davem]

If you click the link in my sig you'll be able to read a lecture by Pullman, not simply quotes taken out of context.

[Bêthberry]

I know of Moorcock mainly for his work in the New Wave SF but these links from davem are really inspiring me to read his most popular work, Elrick of Melniborné (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric) . From the Wiki article, it seems clear that an ideological bent causes Moorcock to favour Pullman. What I want to know is if Elric is as good a story as LotR.

Re: "seeing the world through enchanted eyes" Six of one, half a dozen of the other. If the enchantment causes men to forsake life and limb for an historical social order that is not only wiped away, but hypocritical, self-serving, and brutally abusive to the lower orders while demanding the sacrifice of the lower orders to keep the upper ones in power, then the fantasy offers a false sacrifice. Perhaps it all hinges on whether one bemoans the passing of the old European order? Or is something else involved?

[The Saucepan Man]

If you click the link in my sig you'll be able to read a lecture by Pullman, not simply quotes taken out of context.Thank you for that. I had overlooked it, although I had seen the excerpts on this thread referring to LotR.

I see nothing there to suggest that Pullman is ignorant. Indeed, I found that lecture and the interviews posted by Tevildo and Squatter earlier to be to be highly absorbing and I found myself agreeing with him on many points. I actually get the impression of a highly intelligent, thoughtful and reflective man, albeit one who is forthright in his views and who can clearly be provocative at times (reminds me of a certain Barrow-Downer ... ;) ). Some of the language he uses in connection with LotR is, admittedly, slightly perjorative, but I see nothing to warrant the categorisation of his approach as insulting. As far as I can see, he makes no personal attack on Tolkien. He is merely setting out his opinion of Tolkien's published work (which is fair game) in order to explain why he wanted to achieve something different. As far as Lewis is concerned, he states that he has great respect for the man personally, but finds his Narnia tales grotesque. Fair enough. I have not read them myself, but I can understand the point that he is making.

The article linked to in Tevildo's post is actually vaguley complimentary of LotR, since he refers to the numerous Tolkien imitators as "sub-Tolkiens" (suggesting that he rates Tolkien more highly than those who have attempted to repeat his style) and to LotR as the "Everest" of the fantasy genre. Not only because it is unavoidable (being a bloomin' great mountain) but also because (as this suggests he recognises) it towers above much of the rest of the genre.

And it is in this analogy, and upon re-reading the thread, where I see why I am uncomfortable with some of what has been said here. There seems to be a general assumption that Pullman delights in criticising Tolkien, that he goes out of his way to do so, and that he actively seeks to discourage people from reading Tolkien's works. I don't see that to be the case at all. Inevitably, Tolkien's works come up in most interviews that he gives (courtesy of the journalists concerned). He cannot avoid addressing this Everest of the fantasy landscape. LotR did not appeal to him, and so he would be dishonest were he to pretend otherwise and neglectful were he not to seek to explain why it did not appeal to him. Moreover, in the lecture referenced in davem's signature (which concerns fantasy literature and so inevitably raises the spectre of Everest once more), he uses LotR to explain why he wanted to approach his own fantasy writing (to which he was compelled by his imagination) differently. I don't agree with his categorisation of LotR as "thin" and "trivial" (as my own opinion of it differs from his), but I can understand the point that he is making, given his own reaction to the book.

Is he insulting because he expresses his opinion of LotR when the circumstances require it? No, I don't think so. Is he ignorant because he found little in LotR that appealed to him? Categorically not.

[davem]

Re: "seeing the world through enchanted eyes" Six of one, half a dozen of the other. If the enchantment causes men to forsake life and limb for an historical social order that is not only wiped away, but hypocritical, self-serving, and brutally abusive to the lower orders while demanding the sacrifice of the lower orders to keep the upper ones in power, then the fantasy offers a false sacrifice. Perhaps it all hinges on whether one bemoans the passing of the old European order? Or is something else involved?

Not sure what you're referring to there. WW1? If so I think there's a bit of revisionism present in your analysis. It was as necessary to stop German expansionism in 1914 as it was in 1939. The tactics were beyond doubt both useless & inhuman - particularly in the early years, but the war was a necessary evil.

If you weren't referring to WW1 please ignore the above.

As to Moorcock's 'opinions':

What I found lacking in Tolkien which I had found in, for instance, the Elder Edda, was a sense of tragedy, of reality, of mankind's impermanence...

Tolkien has the right elements of snobbery and escapism to make it a huge success. John Buchan for teenagers. A compendium of disguised bigotry and English high church snobbery. I hate it for exactly those qualities which made it so popular. It's a lullaby. Not sure we need lullabies at the moment. Unless we're all just going to give up, go to sleep and wake up dead. I really do feel contempt for Tolkien and a certain disgust for those adults who voted him writer of the century. ..

It has the same discomfort with cities, the same 'volkishness' you get in proto-Nazi stuff. It scares me a bit, but not that much because times have changed. It would have scared me more if it had been published the year it was conceived.


No sense of tragedy, of mankind's impemanence? That is the central theme of Tolkien's work! You could perhaps argue (if you wanted to be negative) that he does that particular theme to death, but to state it is not there can hardly be called 'opinion' - it is just not true. Only someone who had not actually read LotR or who was too thick to understand what he was reading could say that that element was missing.

The comment that he feels 'contempt & disgust' for those who voted for Tolkien as author of the century is hardly 'reasoned argument' or even 'opinion' - it is a nasty, petty insult.

Finally, its 'proto-Nazi'. Again, this is a man who either knows nothing about 'Nazism' or is just hurling an insult in order to be nasty.

[Child of the 7th Age]

It has the same discomfort with cities, the same 'volkishness' you get in proto-Nazi stuff. It scares me a bit, but not that much because times have changed. It would have scared me more if it had been published the year it was conceived.

Sometimes these literary folk drive me bananas! So many categories and oversimplications that bear no relationship to reality..... I don't think they've read one page of actual history in their life. I suppose Thomas Jefferson's discomfort with cities also qualifies him as a "proto-Nazi"?

Seriously, some very legitimate criticisms of Tolkien can be made. But isn't it interesting how many of the more extreme opinions require the reader to subscribe to a particular set of values, one that essentially limits the set of possibilities open to consideration in a particular world. It would be so much more honest to say this: "I personally don't like X, and since Tolkien shows X in his writings, I simply don't like his approach." I could accept that statement of personal preference. Instead we are all asked to subscribe to a particular philosophy or point of view as if that was the only legitimate one in the entire universe.

[Mister Underhill]

I know of Moorcock mainly for his work in the New Wave SF but these links from davem are really inspiring me to read his most popular work, Elrick of Melniboné (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric).I'm the opposite -- I know Moorcock almost exclusively from his Elric books. I recall that I enjoyed them and I recommend them to people, but with the caveat that I read them some twenty years ago or more now (how that can possibly be I'll mull privately). I probably should fish Stormbringer out of storage and see just what it is that I'm recommending. Also, the later books get a little bizarre. I remember thinking, even all those years ago, that Elric at the End of Time read like the work of a mental patient. Anyway, Moorcock is an interesting character. He obviously has a lot of ambivalence about the genre that he's most well known for working in -- most of his fantasy work seems to be a satire of, a reaction to, or an attempt to reinvent the work of the genre's stalwarts.

[The Saucepan Man]

Didn't get a chance to read the interview with Moorcock earlier, as it was blocked by office system (Adult/Sexually Explicit! :confused: ). It suffers in comparison with his article posted earlier, most likely because of its relative brevity which stifles the development of his argument.

No sense of tragedy, of mankind's impemanence? That is the central theme of Tolkien's work! You could perhaps argue (if you wanted to be negative) that he does that particular theme to death, but to state it is not there can hardly be called 'opinion' - it is just not true.Read in conjunction with the article, I think that it perfectly possible to understand what Moorcock is saying. He views Tolkien as reactionary, as someone who rejected development and change and was more comfortable with a rural, pre/part-industrialised society. In that sense, Tolkien's vision of mankind (in the real world, as opposed to his created world) is one "fixed" within a permanent order. It is certainly clear to me how Moorcock comes to that conclusion, particularly in Tolkien's depiction of The Shire and Aragorn's "right to rule" (and even the Elves). And we know that Tolkien was not at all comfortable with industrial development. In other words, while Man may be impermament (ie mortal) in Middle-earth, Moorcock is saying that Tolkien's vision does not reflect mankind's (society's) development, and therefore impermamence, in the real world. I rather agree with him, although that, for me, is part of Tolkien's charm.

To be honest, I highly doubt that Moorcock has read much more of Tolkien than LotR and, perhaps The Hobbit, and so probably has little understanding of the depth of history behind those two works. And, if he dislikes Tolkien's style, why should he read any more? It is perfectly acceptable to critique one particular work produced by an author, provided that it is taken as just that - a critique of that work, rather than the author's entire body of work.

I am not sure what he means when he says that LotR lacks tragedy. Again, this probably reflects his lack of knowledge of the entire "Legendarium", and also his approach that fantasy works should embrace "real life" issues rather than fantasy ones. When Moorcock describes LotR as "lacking weight" and Pullman describes it as "thin" and trivial, they do not mean that the characters and events described are under-developed within the context of the story. They mean that such characters and events do not reflect "real life", but are restricted in what they say about the human condition to the fantasy world which Tolkien created. In their view, therefore, characters such as Gandalf and Frodo, their reactions, motives and ambitions, lack real world applicabilty. I disagree with them on this, for I regard matters such as the friendship and loyalty between the Hobbits as perfectly relevant and applicable to real world relationships. Similarly, Tolkien's characters face temptations similar to Lyra's "seduction" by Mrs Coulter and the bright lights of London society life, even though the latter is perhaps more directly applicable to our daily lives. We may not struggle with a One Ring ourselves, but we can find the character's struggle with its seductive nature applicable to other things in our lives.

Nevertheless, while I do not subscribe to these opinions expressed by Pullman and Moorcock, I can understand where they are coming from.


The comment that he feels 'contempt & disgust' for those who voted for Tolkien as author of the century is hardly 'reasoned argument' or even 'opinion' - it is a nasty, petty insult.I agree that Moorcock oversteps the bounds of what I would regard as acceptable criticism here. It is a shame that he does so, given the eloquence he shows elsewhere. That said, I do rather agree with him about the nature of "popularity contests". I am sure that we can all agree that popularity is not necessarily an indicator of quality (even though it may be a factor). That is the point Moorcock was seeking to make, although he makes it rather badly.

Elsewhere in the interview, though, he expresses a rather more positive on Tolkien (the man).


I knew and liked Tolkien who in a bufferish sort of way was very kind to me and encouraging. I looked forward to those books coming out. I was deeply disappointed by their lack of weight and their lack of ambitious language.It is Tolkien's work (specifically LotR) that Moorcock dislikes, not the man himself. Although, given his clear left-wing leanings, I doubt that he was particularly appreciative of the "reactionary establishment" with which he would have associated Tolkien (mistakenly, I believe, if Tolkien's Letters are anything to go by). And, disliking the work as he does, he is no doubt frustrated by its enduring popularity (and, again, I disagree with him that such popularity will not continue to endure - but who can know for sure?).

Finally, its 'proto-Nazi'. Again, this is a man who either knows nothing about 'Nazism' or is just hurling an insult in order to be nasty.Again, Moorcock, unnecessarily I think, goes over the top in seeking to make his point. He clearly does not regard Tolkien as a Nazi, nor is he labelling LotR a fascist work. He is stating that, for him, the reactionary nature which he perceives in the work is akin to some aspects of fascist philosophy. Again, I can understand what he is trying to say, but I think that he is mistaken. Just because the Nazis made the trains run on time, it does not make punctual trains a purely fascist phenomenum.

It would be so much more honest to say this: "I personally don't like X, and since Tolkien shows X in his writings, I simply don't like his approach." I could accept that statement of personal preference. Instead we are all asked to subscribe to a particular philosophy or point of view as if that was the only legitimate one in the entire universe.That was my intitial reaction too, as I stated earler when I said that both Pullman and Moorcock seemed to be making the mistake of advocating that there was only one correct approach to fantasy writing. Having read what they have to say in more detail, however, I do not think that is what they are actually saying. I suspect that both would fully accept that they are stating opinion, rather than seeking to lay down "factual" principles of general application. That said, they are both rather dogmatic in expressing their views, which can be off-putting and is (perhaps purposely) prone to "putting noses out of joint" ...

[The Saucepan Man]

I'm the opposite -- I know Moorcock almost exclusively from his Elric books. I recall that I enjoyed them and I recommend them to people, but with the caveat that I read them some twenty years ago or more now (how that can possibly be I'll mull privately).And I know Moorcock, the author, only from his Corum series (and one of the Cornelius series), which I would recommend with the same caveat. I remember particularly enjoying the Corum books and, as I recall, Corum is a far less morally ambiguous character than I understand Elric to be.

[davem]

Read in conjunction with the article, I think that it perfectly possible to understand what Moorcock is saying. He views Tolkien as reactionary, as someone who rejected development and change and was more comfortable with a rural, pre/part-industrialised society. In that sense, Tolkien's vision of mankind (in the real world, as opposed to his created world) is one "fixed" within a permanent order. It is certainly clear to me how Moorcock comes to that conclusion, particularly in Tolkien's depiction of The Shire and Aragorn's "right to rule" (and even the Elves). And we know that Tolkien was not at all comfortable with industrial development. In other words, while Man may be impermament (ie mortal) in Middle-earth, Moorcock is saying that Tolkien's vision does not reflect mankind's (society's) development, and therefore impermamence, in the real world. I rather agree with him, although that, for me, is part of Tolkien's charm.

I don't see that 'not being at all comfortable with industrial development' makes one a bad person - one could even argue it makes one a good person. I prefer wild countryside to urban sprawl - shoot me.

It seems to me that what Pullman & Moorcock are complaining about is that Tolkien didn't tell them what to think. He refused to write 'allegory' - what he did set down was his own vision of 'life, the universe & everything', 'seen through enchanted eyes' which is not to say that he wrote 'fairy stories' or produced 'spun candy' in any way. Horror, pain, loss, sacrifice, are all there, along with love, friendship, honour & beauty, but they are mythologised in order to bring out their timeless & universal aspect so that they become applicable to us & our everyday lives (to the extent that we want them to be).

Its as if Pullman & Moorcock are listenening to Tolkien read LotR. At the end they ask Tolkien what the message was. He says, 'No message. Its a story, what did you think?' They respond 'But what were you trying to say to us? We have to know what the 'message' is before we can know whether we can allow ourselves to like the story. If the message is a bad one we will have to dislike the story'. And Tolkien replies, 'No, its a story set a long time ago, full of heroism & sacrifice, loss & love, beauty & ugliness - a great tale. Did you like it, did it move you, has it affected you in any way?' Moorcock & Pullman look at each other in exasperation & speak to Tolkien as if to a child 'But how are we supposed to know whether we were moved by it, or if so, how we were moved, whether it was good or bad, until you tell us what it means?'

Finally they decide that if there is a message it must be a bad one or Tolkien would be open about it, or that if there isn't a 'message' which they can either agree, or argue with, the story is worthless.

[Bêthberry]

Moorcock is an interesting character. He obviously has a lot of ambivalence about the genre that he's most well known for working in -- most of his fantasy work seems to be a satire of, a reaction to, or an attempt to reinvent the work of the genre's stalwarts.

Interesting, isn't it, this attempt to reinvent the genre? Actually, I have a fair bit of sympathy for writers who are curious enough to want to seek alternate applications of the desire for fairey. If fairey is 'grounded' in human psychology, as Tolkien argued in OFS, then it is quite legitimate to try to seek how many ways this can be satisfied. I don't have to agree with an author in order to appreciate an honest and legitimate attempt to explore aspects which have not previously been explored. And I can also understand the frustration if writers feel that one aspect gets more attention. I suppose the real answer is to write stories with such readerly appeal that they succeed despite the new perspective.

And really, I don't think the point is the message or ideology per se. Or that there even has to be a message. Again, I go back to the idea that Moorcock is putting epic romance in a historical or cultural context and asking if that is the only form possible for fantasy. Tolkien operated within his own philosophical or theological beliefs--all writers do. Some simply foreground them while others prefer to let them colour the background, so to speak.

I go back to a question I asked earlier. Why was Tolkien unable to write stories for the fourth age and later? What inhibited his imagination? Was he merely tired, was it old age? I don't ask this as a criticism, but as a way to understand his writing better. I know people who say they would attend church if their church was a beautiful old gothic style. But what does it say if belief is so completely carved in stone? Is this feeling applicable to Tolkien?

[Lalwendë]

It makes me laugh when people who aim to be anti-establishment claim that all those who are against change are automatically 'reactionaries' or even 'proto-Nazis'. Why? Because in the modern world we are all constantly bombarded with 'change' and we are constantly reminded that we are not 'cool' if we do not embrace it, even that we are unemployable if we do not accept it. But all this embracing of 'change' is just being done to encourage us to be forever unhappy and hence to work even harder and buy even more stuff, buy a bigger house in a better area, get a better holiday next year, go somewhere different (even if it destroys the environment), accept a bigger workload when staff are cut, be bored and restless all the time until we die.

Any prospective anti-establishment writer would do well to think about why change is a big con.

The other little rant that's been provoked by this thread is that yet again another writer has seized on this quasi-medieval 'thing' about Tolkien. Well, I always read LotR as an incredibly modern book with quite stark and bleak themes. If people are associating it with the medieval period then it's that they have this in their own heads. Certainly The Shire is more like early 20th century England, and Rohan isn't Medieval. It's just readers' romantic notions of a colourful period in history imprinting themselves on their ideas of what Tolkien was writing.

Here's another rant. ;) A lot of these writers (Moorcock, Pullman being the ones in mind given this thread) have understandably got a dislike of the formulaic, cliched fantasy that came after Tolkien (so have I - why eat burgers when you can have steak?) but the memories of and notions about this formula fantasy impinges on what Tolkien wrote, on Tolkien's style, which was very different and unformulaic as it actually set the agenda for the whole genre to follow. I don't know, but it seems pretty unintelligent to blame Tolkien for being so damn good that many other writers decided to copy him or use him as inspiration. Am I to criticise Jane Austen for spawning a thousand sickening chick-lit novels? Or Salvador Dali for inspiring a million tacky 1980s Athena posters?

There will always be a market for 'stuff' produced for people who quite pointedly do not like 'other stuff', that need has created a hundred and one different youth movements (punk as reaction to prog rock, grunge as reaction to yuppies etc). Well it seems there are people who love the rollicking good narrative provided by a fantasy novel but who pointedly do not want to be seen reading Tolkien, who want to be different, alternative. Writers who fulfill that need will no doubt sell more books by being vocal, vituperative, and perhaps we should read their criticism as marketing blurb rather than valid analysis?

[The Saucepan Man]

I don't see that 'not being at all comfortable with industrial development' makes one a bad person - one could even argue it makes one a good person. I prefer wild countryside to urban sprawl - shoot me.I don’t think that either Pullman or Moorcock are saying that it does make anyone a “bad” person. They are expressing their opinion about a socio-political approach to life with which they disagree in seeking to explain why they dislike a work which reflects that approach. Personally, I am rather split on this one. Tolkien’s approach to technological development is one of the few points upon which I do fundamentally disagree with him. That said, I do prefer a rural outlook to an urban one and dislike the overcrowded nature of urban areas. I suppose that, while I recognise the value of urbanisation to society, I prefer not to have to experience it myself. In this respect, my tastes have changed markedly since my early 20s, when I positively relished living and working in the city.

Unlike Pullman and Moorcock, however, whatever disagreements I may have with Tolkien on these issues, as reflected in the society which he created, I do not find that these impair my enjoyment of his tales. Partly because I do not expect them to speak directly to my “real life” experiences. And partly because I do not subscribe greatly to Moorcock’s (and, I suspect, Pullman’s) political leanings. Which makes me wonder. Is LotR a fundamentally right wing work (and I am not talking about the extreme right here)? Is it more likely to be appreciated by those with conservative, traditionalist political leanings? Spiritually and socially, Tolkien does come across as rather orthodox but, from his Letters, he seems to be rather politically radical (although his politics seem closer to anti-big state “enlightened Toryism” than anything else).

It makes me laugh when people who aim to be anti-establishment claim that all those who are against change are automatically 'reactionaries' or even 'proto-Nazis'. Why? Because in the modern world we are all constantly bombarded with 'change' and we are constantly reminded that we are not 'cool' if we do not embrace it, even that we are unemployable if we do not accept it. But all this embracing of 'change' is just being done to encourage us to be forever unhappy and hence to work even harder and buy even more stuff, buy a bigger house in a better area, get a better holiday next year, go somewhere different (even if it destroys the environment), accept a bigger workload when staff are cut, be bored and restless all the time until we die. Ah, but change is a fundamental aspect of human nature – the urge to strive for something different, something new, something “better”. Tolkien does address this, but not in the way that the likes of Moorcock can appreciate – not in LotR at least. This does make me wonder whether, were either of them to delve more deeply into Tolkien’s writings, they might appreciate what he has to say about Mannish adaptability and flexibility v Elvish immutability and desire to preserve, stifle even. Tolkien is critical of the Elvish approach, yet I think Moorcock and Pullman are right that he displayed a tendency towards this himself. There is a contradiction of sorts here, or does it reflect a perceptive self-awareness (and self-criticism) on Tolkien’s part?

It seems to me that what Pullman & Moorcock are complaining about is that Tolkien didn't tell them what to think. He refused to write 'allegory' - what he did set down was his own vision of 'life, the universe & everything', 'seen through enchanted eyes' which is not to say that he wrote 'fairy stories' or produced 'spun candy' in any way. Horror, pain, loss, sacrifice, are all there, along with love, friendship, honour & beauty, but they are mythologised in order to bring out their timeless & universal aspect so that they become applicable to us & our everyday lives (to the extent that we want them to be).

Disagree with the first part. Agree with the second. I do not think that Moorcock and Pullman expect Tolkien (or, indeed, any other author) to tell them what to think. I do think that they expect literature to speak to their real life experiences. They clearly feel that, psychologically, politically and/or socially, Tolkien’s characters are stuck in Middle-earth and have nothing to tell them about the real world. I disagree with them on that and agree with you about the applicability of Tolkien’s writings to our everyday lives.

I nevertheless do think that it is rather unfair to categorise Pullman and Moorcock as rejecting stories for their own sake. What Pullman says in one of those interviews about the importance of the story and his own trilogy almost writing itself sounds very similar to statements made by Tolkien in this regard. I am not sure that they expect a “message” in the sense of an allegory. They are perfectly happy to accept a story for its own sake, provided that they can find applicability in it. And they do not find that applicability in LotR. Fair enough. Not everyone does.

[davem]

It seems to me that both Pullman & Moorcock are criticising LotR for an absence of any 'message'. Pullman's comment that it is 'spun candy' that it is trivial, that it has nothing to say to us implies that he feels it should be saying something. Moorcock seems to feel that what it has to say is either trivial or reactionary. Moorcock seems so desperate for it to say anything that he will impose a meaning on it & then criticise that meaning.

Pullman stated in an interview on BBC radio (hosted by Germaine Greer) that he was 'using fantasy to undermine fantasy'. Greer, with her well known dislike of fantasy was having none of it & adopted a sneering tone all the way through & Pullman went off with his tail between his legs. Whatever. Pullman has also stated that he wishes he could write 'serious' novels but hasn't the ability (interview with Brian Sibley on Radio 4). Pullman clearly feels that fantasy as a genre is for children & inadequate adults & needs a damn good thrashing & putting in its place. Moorcock seems to feel that fantasy is all well & good as a vehicle for his politics & must subvert the status quo if it is to be acceptable. Both want to be accepted by the literati (Moorcock has even gone so far as to re-write the ending of one of his novels - Gloriana - to make it more 'PC' in response to a criticism by Andrea Dworkin: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/fantasticfiction/gloriana.htm )

I go back to a question I asked earlier. Why was Tolkien unable to write stories for the fourth age and later? What inhibited his imagination? Was he merely tired, was it old age? I don't ask this as a criticism, but as a way to understand his writing better. I know people who say they would attend church if their church was a beautiful old gothic style. But what does it say if belief is so completely carved in stone? Is this feeling applicable to Tolkien?

I'm not sure this is all that complicated. The idea for The New Shadow wasnot reallly one that could be taken anywhere. Personally, when I read it, with its villain a young man questioning authority & indulging in 'Orcish' behaviour on the sly, I couldn't help feeling that Tolkien was having a bit of a rant about 'the youth of today'. I don't think there was much potential there. As to why he couldn't write anything about later ages, I suspect he had taken the story to its logical conclusion in the departure of the Elves at the end of LotR. The LKegendarium is the story of the Elves principally. Any sequel would either have had to be greater & more spectacular than LotR (which would have undermined the impact of LotR, made it just one more story in the Legendarium), or it would have been merely another minor tale that went nowhere.

Of course, one could argue that Smith is also set in a later age of M-e...

[The Saucepan Man]

Perhaps we should invite Pullman and/or Moorcock to contribute to this discussion so that they can explain their respective positions, rather than continuing to speculate on the motives and intentions behind the points they make in connection with Tolkien's works and fantasy in general.

:rolleyes: :D

[Bêthberry]

Given that the King of Fairie in Smith is a prentice chef who excels at baking fancy cakes, and that the original name of the story was The Great Cake, the eating of which provides an opportunity for a chosen one to enter the realm of fairie unscathed, I suspect that Tolkien would not have looked askance at the 'spun candy' attribution. :p :D

[Child of the 7th Age]

Just a minute here, SpM . If we ask Moorcock and Pullman, surely we must invite Tolkien as well! I enjoy the writings of all three authors, but my personal sympathies are closer to Davem's on this issue.

Is LotR a fundamentally right wing work (and I am not talking about the extreme right here)? Is it more likely to be appreciated by those with conservative, traditionalist political leanings? Spiritually and socially, Tolkien does come across as rather orthodox but, from his Letters, he seems to be rather politically radical (although his politics seem closer to anti-big state “enlightened Toryism” than anything else).

This has always been a fascinating question to me. Years ago, when I first read the books, those who enjoyed the stories tended to be people who could be labelled "leftish", at least by the standards of American culture in the sixties. This was at a time when the environmental movement was just starting up, and many sympathized with Tolkien's "green" views. Perhaps this is in contrast to the situation today, when many Christians read Tolkien and see echoes of their beliefs in his writing. At least some of these readers would probably regard themselves as conservative on many social issues.

Still, we have to be careful with this labelling. The odd thing is that, a work labelled reactionary in one era can be viewed as liberal in another. Even in the same time period, one critic can have a different take than another. Tolkien's "pro-rural, anti-technology" message can be regarded as reactionary. Yet, another critic might argue that Tolkien was one of the earliest authors who challenged readers to consider the implications of man's indifference and/or manipulation of the environment.

[drigel]

The only reason we are hearing from anyone (including those who are critical) with an opinion on the works is because of the massive end result (impact) to the reader. And not just one particular reader. Massive, meaning the incredible size of the swath that it cut through society. The beauty of it was that it wasnt written with this, or any other high-falutin literary end in mind. Yet, such an incredible result.

Now, long after the fact (of creation) comes supporters and detractors, certain that they know how\why, or how not \ why isnt. Would anyone care to opine if the end result didnt exist? Or, perhaps denying it existed in the first place works better for some..? Much like those who would tear down a thing to not only see how the thing works, or others who would tear down a thing to build their own shabby facsimile in defiance or jealousy, or spite.

I would daresay there are few out there like me who have spent a lifetime enjoying the works, and the reason I (we) do isnt the underlying thesis, or the political social message. An ingredient, which, taken out of its context, reveals many defects and flaws. The writing style is stilted and out of date. The narrative of the action is curt. Character development could have been better. Yea ok - but I would submit that any deviations from what we have would lessen the impact of the work for me.

Perhaps it was that JRRT was merely the first to take Faerie seriously. All I know is that what my mind's eye sees is what the author intended, and it's a good thing that he took me seriously. I begin to know Faerie, thanks to JRRT.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Given that the King of Fairie in Smith is a prentice chef who excels at baking fancy cakes, and that the original name of the story was The Great Cake, the eating of which provides an opportunity for a chosen one to enter the realm of fairie unscathed, I suspect that Tolkien would not have looked askance at the 'spun candy' attribution. :p :D

Oh, but the sugar icing on the cake was symbolic for making Faery childish and overly sweet - Alf Prentice wasn't enthusiastic about it. And the story's change of name goes hand in hand with Tolkien's change in the focus of the tale. The cake was no longer the "main character" or "hero" of the story! I suspect that Moorcock and Pullman would side more with the inadequate cook, Nokes, than with Alf Prentice, the King of Faery...

[davem]

Given that the King of Fairie in Smith is a prentice chef who excels at baking fancy cakes, and that the original name of the story was The Great Cake, the eating of which provides an opportunity for a chosen one to enter the realm of fairie unscathed, I suspect that Tolkien would not have looked askance at the 'spun candy' attribution. :p :D

He may enter Faery unscathed, but he certainly doesn't leave it that way. It changes him & those around him & on his final return from Faery he is filled with loss & regret & a knowledge that 'there is no real going back'. Frodo cannot go back to the Shire, Smith cannot go back to Faery, both end bereft.

Smith had lived two lives since he came of age, & intgrated them well enough, though his family & fellow villagers have had to share him with the OtherWorld. In the end, when he is an old man, he is cast out, his passport taken away from him & he is left to share his final years with his family. How much did they miss of his life? What did his wife & children have to sacrifice, knowing that they were excluded from so much that was of central importance to him? How much did he miss of their lives while travelling in Faery, knowing they could never share that aspect of his life? And all the time he knew that he did not belong there, was only a visiting wanderer beneath the trees.

[Lalwendë]

Unlike Pullman and Moorcock, however, whatever disagreements I may have with Tolkien on these issues, as reflected in the society which he created, I do not find that these impair my enjoyment of his tales. Partly because I do not expect them to speak directly to my “real life” experiences. And partly because I do not subscribe greatly to Moorcock’s (and, I suspect, Pullman’s) political leanings. Which makes me wonder. Is LotR a fundamentally right wing work (and I am not talking about the extreme right here)? Is it more likely to be appreciated by those with conservative, traditionalist political leanings? Spiritually and socially, Tolkien does come across as rather orthodox but, from his Letters, he seems to be rather politically radical (although his politics seem closer to anti-big state “enlightened Toryism” than anything else).


No, I would not put Tolkien's work on the right hand end of any political scale. But I wouldn't say he was particularly left leaning either. He does deal with political issues such as the environment and corruption/power (both often go hand in hand ;)), he even tackles feminism to some extent with Eowyn (though admittedly arguable), and racism in the suspicion that Elves and Dwarves have of each other. Of course, there is the slightly anarchistic/Utopian nature of The Shire, and then there are Monarchies and totalitarian states, together with what might be seen as theocracies (like Iran) in the form of Valinor!

Tolkien is not politically unaware, but I firmly believe he is politically ambiguous. It would be wrong to confuse his status as middle class white Catholic male with what he wrote, as the text does not bear out the kind of writing we might expect from that stereotype. The main thing to remember is the incredible subtlety of Tolkien's writing. This is why I react when people claim it for their own 'agenda' - whether political or religious, as his work is far too subtle and ambiguous to shore up any creed, apart perhaps from environmentalism.

Just from reading about the Hobbits, their characteristics, society and the different personalities a lot is revealed. Tolkien is a little Englander - concerned with what surrounds him, with the small but nevertheless important things in life (the welfare of a neighbour - e.g. the Gaffer getting his new smial, young people being led astray e.g. the young Hobbit shirriffs who Sam brings down a peg or two). But like any little Englander he is not ignorant of the Big Issues, war, power, destruction. Little Englander is no insult, far from it! It's an apolitical term, and refers to someone not interested in right or left dogma, but in the issues and what matters.

Maybe this is why people like Pullman and Moorcock don't like Tolkien. He isn't taking a party line of any kind, just going with what is important regardless of any agenda.

And like Child has said, the fact that Tolkien's work appeals to so many diverse people and can be read in so many different ways suggests that there is indeed no agenda there.

[The Saucepan Man]

Just a minute here, SpM . If we ask Moorcock and Pullman, surely we must invite Tolkien as well!Ah, but there are surely more than enough people here to speak up on Tolkien's behalf - with a far greater inclination to "take his side" and to take the time to consider carefully the materials available in this regard. ;)

I enjoy the writings of all three authors, but my personal sympathies are closer to Davem's on this issue.My sympathies too lie more with Tolkien on these issues. Yet I would rather engage constructively with what the likes of Pullman and Moorcock have to say than simply shout it down. And I do find much of what they do have to say (Pullman in particular) of interest, even if I do not agree with all of it. The parallels betwen what Pullman has to say on the nature of writing and what Tolkien himself said in this regard are, as has been pointed out previously, fascinating.

I would daresay there are few out there like me who have spent a lifetime enjoying the works, and the reason I (we) do isnt the underlying thesis, or the political social message.I would count myself in that category too. While I can see applicability in Tolkien's works, they are to me, first and foremost, entertaining and engaging reads. I do not think, as Pullman and Moorcock appear to, that novels necessarily have to tell us something about our world (on a direct and conscious level at least) in order to have literary merit or value. Funnily enough, though, I enjoyed the works of Pullman and Moorcock in much the same way as I enjoyed Tolkien's works - as entertaining reads. I wonder what they would make of that? They must accept, surely, that many of their readers will approach their works in the same way, particularly as their greatest appeal will be among younger readers.

He does deal with political issues such as the environment and corruption/power (both often go hand in hand ;) ) ...Yet not, for Tolkien, inevitably so. In Tolkien's works, power corrupts if employed in the service of evil. But power and authority can be exercised in the service of good, too, as in the case of Aragorn's rule. Manwë's rule is another example. I suspect that Moorcock and Pullman would take a different view, namely that power and authority is almost always a corrupting influence. I find myself rather in agreement with that approach, when considering the "real world", although I do not find Tolkien's treatment of the issue as lacking credibility, in the context of Middle-earth.

It would be wrong to confuse his status as middle class white Catholic male with what he wrote, as the text does not bear out the kind of writing we might expect from that stereotype.I think that it does, to a degree, including in some of the ways which Moorcock identifies. But I agree that this is not comprehensively the case. Tolkien was a complex character (but aren't most of us?). I take the point made by Child about different values within the text being ascribed differing value over time and between different readers/critics. And I also take the point which both of you make concerning Tolkien's enviromentalist leanings. Both Pullman and Moorcock gloss over those aspects of Tolkien's works with which they might have some sympathy, were they to consider them, and focus on those elements which they find disagreeable. That's understandable, I suppose. Given that the works do not appear to appeal to them on an insitinctive level, it is natural for them to look to why this might be.

Maybe this is why people like Pullman and Moorcock don't like Tolkien. He isn't taking a party line of any kind, just going with what is important regardless of any agenda.But, as I understand it, on the basis of Tolkien's own statements (as expressed in his Letters) and on many commentators on his works, he did have an agenda of sorts. Not political, maybe, but certainly religious (consciously so in the revision) and, to a degree, social/environmental. That is not to say that he wrote LotR to "preach" or to persuade anyone to his own viewpoint. But, to my mind, his agenda certainly influenced what he wrote. Pullman and Moorcock dislike LotR not because they perceive no agenda but because they see it, at best, as irrelevant and, at worst, as dangerous.

No, I would not put Tolkien's work on the right hand end of any political scale ... And like Child has said, the fact that Tolkien's work appeals to so many diverse people and can be read in so many different ways suggests that there is indeed no agenda there.I do not disagree about the diverse appeal of Tolkien's works. But I do wonder why his most vociferous critics (Greer, Hari, Moorcock etc) are those with left-wing leanings. I also wonder why it seems to be the case that those who seek to criticise Tolkien's writings are always so vociferous in doing so. Is it, as has been suggested, a consequence of frustration at their widespread and enduring appeal? Are there any critics of Tolkien who adopt a more reasonable, constructive approach? Based on what I have read, Pullman would appear to be the most reasonable of them all ...

[Bêthberry]

And the story's change of name goes hand in hand with Tolkien's change in the focus of the tale. The cake was no longer the "main character" or "hero" of the story!

Ah, 'spun candy' here belongs to summer ritual, part of carnivals and exhibitions and wild rides, as important to my culture as the old carnival was to European culture (although perhaps the perilous element is missing)--and so it also signifies a special event, a rare time, fleeting--"fairs" in all the special meanings.

However, you have read that intriguing essay in the new edition, Esty, so you will have a more expansive understanding of the story. I am really intrigued by the original idea that the baker/cake was a metaphor for writer/story but grew into a metaphor for the passing of generations, with the ritual celebration.

I wonder, could you verify my source, which suggested that the title was changed (when the story was published in Redbook) to imply a PG. Wodehouse story or a Boy's Own story. Does Flieger mention this at all?

[Mister Underhill]

I think one reason that the criticisms of Pullman and Moorcock come across as petulant (at least to me) is that it's the work that is the ultimate argument. The way to really "defeat" Tolkien and win your argument over him is to write a book that is so much better (imaginatively, technically, ideologically, or whatever) that it transcends LotR so completely as to reduce it to irrelevance or at least quaintness (in the most dismissive sense of that word). For those guys -- who are at least moderately successful in their own right, but who still live in the shadow of Tolkien -- to write essays bashing him is like Charles Barkley writing essays on why Michael Jordan is overrated. No. If you want to prove that Jordan is overrated, you've got to prove it on the court where it counts. Talk is cheap.

[Bêthberry]

I think one reason that the criticisms of Pullman and Moorcock come across as petulant (at least to me) is that it's the work that is the ultimate argument. The way to really "defeat" Tolkien and win your argument over him is to write a book that is so much better (technically, ideologically, or whatever) that it transcends LotR so completely as to reduce it to irrelevance or at least quaintness (in the most dismissive sense of that word). For those guys -- who are at least moderately successful in their own right, but who still live in the shadow of Tolkien -- to write essays bashing him is like Charles Barkley writing essays on why Michael Jordan is overrated. No. If you want to prove that Jordan is overrated, you've got to prove it on the court where it counts. Talk is cheap.

You are, of course, right as rain, Mister Underhill. It is the imagination that must be gained.

Yet, SF is one of the most gabbling of genres, perhaps because its status was once so often dismissed. And with the advent of the fan convention, authors can hardly be blamed for becoming engaged in the discussion of the beast. The talk is simply a symptom of the popularity of the genre and the access which fans have to writers. To say nothing of internet discussion forums. ;)


Maybe this is why people like Pullman and Moorcock don't like Tolkien. He isn't taking a party line of any kind, just going with what is important regardless of any agenda.

And like Child has said, the fact that Tolkien's work appeals to so many diverse people and can be read in so many different ways suggests that there is indeed no agenda there.

Umm, I don't think it is quite that easy to dismiss an 'agenda' in Tolkien, although I would call it a perspective. Sauce mentions the religious element which came to the fore in Tolkien's imagination as he aged, but the elements which hold LotR together are mythology and linquistics/philology. This is similar to, say, Ursua K. LeGuin's use of an anthropological perspective. For Tolkien, it is an historical world view which permeates his writing, a world view writers like Pullman and Moorcock find intrudes upon their enjoyment of the books.


It changes him & those around him & on his final return from Faery he is filled with loss & regret & a knowledge that 'there is no real going back'. Frodo cannot go back to the Shire, Smith cannot go back to Faery, both end bereft.


See my previous post in reply to Esty for how spun candy fits with the ritual passing of generations, life, time.

I wonder if it is only the SF authors who use the archetypes of science and technology as the basis of their fantasy who have such difficulties with Tolkien? I've been looking at Le Guin's attitude towards Tolkien, which is not only different from those of Pullman and Moorcock, but more subtle as well.

Here are a couple of links with Le Guin's comments on Tolkien.

NPR discussion of Tolkien, with Le Guin, Shippey et al (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1553102)

Tributes from Le Guin at Green Books (http://greenbooks.theonering.net/tributes/files/ursula_leguin.html)

This second one is an amalgamation of her comments in The Language of the Night, which I have at hand and will skim to see what else one can provide.

[davem]

I don't think it is quite that easy to dismiss an 'agenda' in Tolkien, although I would call it a perspective.

Perspective is inevitable. But I think Tolkien's perspective is that change is inevitable, yet it is change away from perfection (it is an 'Elvish' perspective as Flieger has pointed out). The implication is that that is a tragic but inevitable situation. Tolkien accepts that change is unavoidable but he doesn't like it. He will not entirely reject the possibility that there is hope, that the future will bring good things, but he won't reject the past as a time of ignorant savagery, or of superstition which we have grown out of & are now free to move on to bigger & better things.

It seems to me that both Moorcock & Pullman do see the past in that light & their message is that the future can be made better than the past, that, in fact there is an 'evolutionary trend' towards things improving – if we can just break free of the past. In this sense, their perspective is 'Mannish' & Tolkien's Elvishness is holding fantasy (& humanity perhaps) back.

I think a conflict is inevitable but I'm not sure Moorcock & Pullman actually understand the true nature of the conflict, that both sides reflect aspects of human state or, most importantly, that Tolkien's work is actually an analysis/exploration of that very conflict within the human psyche.

[HerenIstarion]

that Tolkien's work is actually an analysis/exploration of that very conflict within the human psyche

It seems to me that even in that conflict, ultimate hope of both Elves and Men and even Dwarves is to the future - the making of Last Music and singing in the Last Choir. As seen from the perspective of those placed inside the circles of the world, it is future affair. Incarnation hinted at as an ultimate relief is also future affair for the ME of both Silmarillion and LoTR.

So it seems to me that conflict here lies in a bit different plane - as both P and M believe (mark wording) that the ‘paradise’ is achievable on earth/within solar system/galaxy/whatever trough our own efforts, and even more so - that such a paradise is not only achievable, but inevitable (unless we fail ultimately through folly such as religion in Pullman’s case) as the general trend of the world is evolution from simpler to more complex and from worse to better, and Tolkien believes just the opposite (at least about own efforts. Of course own efforst are of vast importance with Tolkien, but something extra is to be there always - it is joint effort, to put it crudely, that counts). Hence conflict inevitably shifts to become issue of religion (not necessarily organized religion, but in the sense of faith for sure).

Edit: davem, I'm just halfway through the lecture you link to in your signature: (http://www.sofn.org.uk/Conferences/pullman2002.htm). Interesting key-phrase, said in unobtrusive way, almost like a slip of the tongue: Like God, they [characters in any story] are nonreal. Thanks for interesting read, too. But deary me, why can't these people just live and let others live, I can't help thinking - why pull out some kind of yardstick and aggressively compare things at all? 'This is better than that, and that is worse than this' seems to be the motto, but most annoying is an addedum running like '...and therefore you too should like this more than that...'

[Lalwendë]

Yet not, for Tolkien, inevitably so. In Tolkien's works, power corrupts if employed in the service of evil. But power and authority can be exercised in the service of good, too, as in the case of Aragorn's rule. Manwë's rule is another example. I suspect that Moorcock and Pullman would take a different view, namely that power and authority is almost always a corrupting influence. I find myself rather in agreement with that approach, when considering the "real world", although I do not find Tolkien's treatment of the issue as lacking credibility, in the context of Middle-earth.

Yes Tolkien gives us some examples (of Men in particular, but its not isolated to them as a race) of figureheads who do not allow thier power to corrupt them. But they are quite pointedly rare, and even with Aragorn we see occasions which demonstrate how easily such a great Man could tip into arrogance. I think Tolkien makes it clear that power can even corrupt a very good man (or elf). Even where power is ostensibly being used for 'good' as in the case of Galadriel and Lothlorien, scratch the surface and there is a nasty side. So I think Tolkien is not that far away from Moorcock and Pullman in this respect, though he will allow that sometimes, just sometimes, a person might come along who isn't like that - Tolkien allows some occasional, fleeting hope.

I take the point made by Child about different values within the text being ascribed differing value over time and between different readers/critics.

This, I like to think, is because Tolkien's work goes beyond mere prose in style. It is poetic and visual; the images, characters and ideas he draws can be quite mercurial as opposed to the fixed images we sometimes get from fiction.

But, as I understand it, on the basis of Tolkien's own statements (as expressed in his Letters) and on many commentators on his works, he did have an agenda of sorts. Not political, maybe, but certainly religious (consciously so in the revision) and, to a degree, social/environmental. That is not to say that he wrote LotR to "preach" or to persuade anyone to his own viewpoint. But, to my mind, his agenda certainly influenced what he wrote. Pullman and Moorcock dislike LotR not because they perceive no agenda but because they see it, at best, as irrelevant and, at worst, as dangerous.

If Tolkien had any clear religious agenda then it would be more apparent and obvious - I think the fact that people are still arguing over this is proof that his text was not meant to be taken as some kind of religious lesson or allegory. Yes it might be there, I don't think we can deny that his Catholicism influenced much of what he wrote, but it is not there as part of a religious agenda. Tolkien may have gone over his work at a later stage and identified the religious analogies (especially when questioned by letters from readers), but this has to be put into the context of his public image as a Catholic academic. Though I don't want to go opening cans of worms about Religion in LotR - I'll leave it at saying that yes, his religion must have influenced what he wrote, but any 'agenda' was sketchy and indirect at best/worst.

I do not disagree about the diverse appeal of Tolkien's works. But I do wonder why his most vociferous critics (Greer, Hari, Moorcock etc) are those with left-wing leanings. I also wonder why it seems to be the case that those who seek to criticise Tolkien's writings are always so vociferous in doing so. Is it, as has been suggested, a consequence of frustration at their widespread and enduring appeal? Are there any critics of Tolkien who adopt a more reasonable, constructive approach? Based on what I have read, Pullman would appear to be the most reasonable of them all ...

Why are they vociferous? Because you'd have to shout loud to be heard over all our fan-worship, over the massive sales and over the lists which have placed Tolkien as 'the best....ever!" Anyway, about those with leftist leanings. Having leftist leanings myself I can honestly say that there is a sector on 'that side' who are terribly earnest and like everything to be as PC as humanly possible; they also like 'challenging' Arts - which sadly often translates into cruddy poetry, unwatchable films and inedible food. However, there is also a significant 'leftist' grouping who are likely to be Tolkien-obsessed - the New Agers, the greenies and not least, the outdoorsy types, those who like nothing better than nearly being killed by high gales halfway up Helvellyn on a weekend. ;)

[davem]

Pullman & Moorcock are clearly 'mannish' in their approach both to fantasy & 'real life'. This leads them, I think, to be blind to the faults inherent in an overly Mannish approach to life. Tolkien can see the faults & the virtues of both approaches. He can see the good in Elvishness – its preservation of what was valuable in the past, but he can also see that that desire to preserve things at all costs effectively puts a halt to change & development & ultimately leads to embalming & stagnation. However for all the 'freedom' inherent in the Mannish approach there is a downside which both Pullman & Moorcock in their idealism of it cannot see. They, rather than Tolkien, take a black & white approach. They fail to see that in breaking away completely from the past we become rootless & have inevitably to view the past in a negative, light, the past is ignorant, savage & superstitious. It becomes for them associated with 'evil' & everything evil is associated with the past. To preserve anything is dangerous, & ultimately restrictive of humanity.

[HerenIstarion]

It's much more interesting, because much more realistic, when there's a struggle between different goods

Another key-phrase from that lecture by Pullman. Denethor and his guards' loyalty, and dead key-warden come to mind, though.

To preserve anything is dangerous, & ultimately restrictive of humanity

I can't help recalling the story I've read some years back (though I can't remember the name of the author (nor the title of the story), as I did enjoy it at the time of reading - it was a short story of the man smuggling something trough the city at great personal risk. The story is placed at some future time when advertising and manufacturing companies are the same. The result is that not a product lasts more than couple of hours (be it clothing or furniture or vehicle). Social and economical structure is based on constant change, automata sell and sell things to people who are forced to constantly buy them. The nature of the thing protagonist is smuggling along is not revealed until the very end, but than the reader finds that it was not a weapon or bomb, but merely a stool (or maybe a chair) made of real wood.

It seems to me that Messers M. and P. do not like wood. They think it's too crude, greatly inferior to, say, plastic or something even more complex like kevlar... :rolleyes:

[drigel]

..... that novels necessarily have to tell us something about our world (on a direct and conscious level at least) in order to have literary merit or value.
Conscious level being the key term. well put


Funnily enough, though, I enjoyed the works of Pullman and Moorcock in much the same way as I enjoyed Tolkien's works - as entertaining reads. I wonder what they would make of that?
Their accountants send thank you notes on their behalf. Another difference between they and JRRT.

Talk is cheap.
Perfect. Exquisite. And for the past 60+ years of publishing history I'm still waiting.... for even a close contender.
:rolleyes:

This, I like to think, is because Tolkien's work goes beyond mere prose in style.
A transcending effect that is common among masterpieces.

It is poetic and visual; the images, characters and ideas he draws can be quite mercurial as opposed to the fixed images we sometimes get from fiction.
Reaching very, very, very, far back, in order to awaken sleeping Muses that reside in all of us.

. However for all the 'freedom' inherent in the Mannish approach there is a downside which both Pullman & Moorcock in their idealism of it cannot see.
Regardless of their personal beliefs, they also take a Mannish approach to religion in LOTR. Its there, and some of it can be translated by the reader into a contemporary nuance. But it is (of course) a religion that the author presents that predates Mannish influences and organization.

[Bêthberry]

[Their accountants send thank you notes on their behalf. Another difference between they and JRRT.

This is a bit of rhetorical unfairness if you are implying that P & M are hacks writing for profit only. Pullman was a teacher for most of his adult life and did not depend upon royalties for an income. Moorcock has worked and toiled considerably in the SF world to increase its respect--work and effort that is highly regarded and respected. Tolkien wrote for his private pleasure but he also has said--sorry I don't have the Letters to hand now--that he harboured a desire to publish. They are all credible writers.



And for the past 60+ years of publishing history I'm still waiting.... for even a close contender.
:rolleyes:

I'm glad you are so inspired and enthused by Tolkien. However, not everyone is as you are and there are many readers who love Tolkien who have also found other writers who they would regard as close contenders. Reading is highly subjective. Without denigrating Tolkien, it surely must be possible to enjoy other writers.

But aside from this, what I find fascinating is how Tolkien seems to produce this kind of split in readers: deeply passionate, committed fans and readers who cannot stand him. Is this a trait of Tolkien readers only or does it happen with other readers? What causes this great divide?


Its there, and some of it can be translated by the reader into a contemporary nuance. But it is (of course) a religion that the author presents that predates Mannish influences and organization.

Umm, my understanding is that Tolkien wanted to depict a world prior to divine revelation. Perhaps I am not understanding what you mean?

[drigel]

hi bb

I didnt say they were hacks. I do stand corrected with regards to Pullman. I have read Moorecock. Not. a. big. fan. Profit in sales was the point being made as to motivation of craft. Everyone has an opinion, and if one gets their opinion published, then I certainly will have my opinion on it, and its subject. And having a good idea of craft, and a good idea of Moorecock's product, I think my point is valid especially in regards to the second quote of mine you put up. Not only is he not in the same ballpark, he isnt in the same country of the same ballpark. And so thus (like SPM I do appreciate all views positive and negative), I continue to wait. But I also consider the source - as in the craft, and the resulting work.


They are all credible writers.
I didnt say the werent.
LOTR isnt the greatest work ever written, nor is it the most important. It is important to me, and of course I have my opinion. In the field of fantasy, half of SF, and fiction overall - yes - top 5 in my opinion. But the guy who brought us Elric (and whose market for that was, and is, a direct result of JRRT *insert applause from accountants here*) is critical of LOTR.... I am sorry if I am coming across as snipy. But that is an opening (self inflicted at that) that is far, far to easy to walk into. cmon - Elric???

Reading is highly subjective. Without denigrating Tolkien, it surely must be possible to enjoy other writers.
I agree with the former, but as to the latter - (I wouldnt use the word denigrate - but the terms critical, or petulant, as M Underhill succinctly put works well for me) isnt exactly what this thread is about: A couple of authors publishing treatises or opinions that IMO go beyond the above approved terms into the realm of demeaning, trite and - worse of all - disregarded due to lack of depth. Spun Candy after all. humph

What causes this great divide?
you either get it or you dont, much like other works that offer insights into the human condition. This isnt about the red pill or the blue pill. Nor is it about the experience of society and science.

Umm, my understanding is that Tolkien wanted to depict a world prior to divine revelation. Perhaps I am not understanding what you mean?
Isnt that what I said? Umm well the point being that given that, one cannot exercise what I was refering to in Davem's quote:
However for all the 'freedom' inherent in the Mannish approach there is a downside which both Pullman & Moorcock in their idealism of it cannot see.
in regards to religion in LOTR. They are forcing a round peg into a square hole. And the bad result of that (according to them) is the author's fault.

Again sorry to come across as a grump. And apologies to all the Moorecock fans out there :D

[davem]

Been scouting around & found a reference to a conversation between Tolkien & one of his collaborators referenced in Splintered Light by Verlyn Flieger:

"Mlle. d'Ardenne recalled saying to him once, apropos his work: `You broke the veil, didn't you, and passed through?' and she adds that he `readily admitted' having done so."

Fliger comments:

For Tolkien to admit to such an experience implies that he felt his use of the word as well as his study of it had carried him beyond imagination into a real vision of that which he wrote, that the word itself was the light by which he saw."

Now, in relation to the the whole 'spun candy' thing, what could Tolkien have meant? If Tolkien could say at one point that LotR had no inner meaning or message (LotR Foreword) & at another 'admit' that he had 'broken the veil & passed through' what was he talking about. Is this about language itself - Tolkien felt he had passed through the veil of language as mere 'words' & achieved some deeper vision of the human psyche, the language making facility? He repeatedly said that in writing the Legendarium he was attempting to find out 'what really happened' & we also have the interesting incident reported in on e of the Letters where a visitor said to him ' Of course, you don't believe you made all that up, do you?' & Tolkien responded that he didn't anymore & hadn't been able to believe so since.

But what was it a 'real vision' of? & if it was a 'real vision' of something. how could Tolkien state the story had no inner meaning or message? If Tolkien's work reveals his vision of a 'reality' beyond the veil how could it have no meaning or message? One can only assume that he meant it had no meaning or message imposed by Tolkien himself & that he was communicating 'what really happpened' - ie the 'meaning or message' was not a personal one but rather an impersonal /universal one.

So, was Tolkien wrong? If he was right then is his work really just 'spun candy

[Lalwendë]

Now, in relation to the the whole 'spun candy' thing, what could Tolkien have meant? If Tolkien could say at one point that LotR had no inner meaning or message (LotR Foreword) & at another 'admit' that he had 'broken the veil & passed through' what was he talking about. Is this about language itself - Tolkien felt he had passed through the veil of language as mere 'words' & achieved some deeper vision of the human psyche, the language making facility? He repeatedly said that in writing the Legendarium he was attempting to find out 'what really happened' & we also have the interesting incident reported in on e of the Letters where a visitor said to him ' Of course, you don't believe you made all that up, do you?' & Tolkien responded that he didn't anymore & hadn't been able to believe so since.

But what was it a 'real vision' of? & if it was a 'real vision' of something. how could Tolkien state the story had no inner meaning or message? If Tolkien's work reveals his vision of a 'reality' beyond the veil how could it have no meaning or message? One can only assume that he meant it had no meaning or message imposed by Tolkien himself & that he was communicating 'what really happpened' - ie the 'meaning or message' was not a personal one but rather an impersonal /universal one.

So, was Tolkien wrong? If he was right then is his work really just 'spun candy

And to me, there lies the central point of why Tolkien's work is so wonderful. Reading it, it feels as though this work was not carefully constructed over a whole lifetime, as though the author never had to sweat and make hard choices. It reads as though it is real, almost as though Tolkien was merely setting down on paper a story told to him or 'found'.

Despite knowing that each name, each new word was carefully constructed, it feels natural and unforced and most of all, not silly!

So much other fantasy seems forced and false. And I have to say I get that feeling from Moorcock. It reminds me of when you're mucking about and pretending to be a cliched fantasy character, striking a pose with the broom handle and a colander on your head and yelling in a deep voice: "Rarrr, I am Krell from the Doom-mountains of Tharg and I wield the mighty Wrathslayer of Slaywarg!" I think you know what I mean there. ;)

[davem]

It reminds me of when you're mucking about and pretending to be a cliched fantasy character, striking a pose with the broom handle and a colander on your head and yelling in a deep voice: "Rarrr, I am Krell from the Doom-mountains of Tharg and I wield the mighty Wrathslayer of Slaywarg!"

She keeps doing this on the bus. Its very embarrassing (sigh)

[Lalwendë]

She keeps doing this on the bus. Its very embarrassing (sigh)

Well, it ensures I get a seat when all the twirlies get on anyway. ;)

[drigel]

Ive been looking for a good Wrathslayer. I wonder how much a slightly used one would be. The one I have is old and worn, so Ive renamed it Wrathhugger.

[Roa_Aoife]

But what was it a 'real vision' of? & if it was a 'real vision' of something. how could Tolkien state the story had no inner meaning or message? If Tolkien's work reveals his vision of a 'reality' beyond the veil how could it have no meaning or message? One can only assume that he meant it had no meaning or message imposed by Tolkien himself & that he was communicating 'what really happpened' - ie the 'meaning or message' was not a personal one but rather an impersonal /universal one.

A "real vision" could also be be written as a "vision of reality." Not everything that is real has a meaning or purpose. Like Candy (and perhaps this is where Tolkien is very much like candy.) Candy has no meaning, no nutritional value, and no real reason behind it, but that doesn't make it less real. And if you have a sweet tooth as big as mine, it can make your whole day better. Tolkien's vision was "real" like that- it doesn't have to have a meaning to be; it just is. Maybe that's why we like Tolkien and Candy so much. It's a wonderfully freeing feeling to just let something be, especially if that something is yourself.

[HerenIstarion]

If Tolkien's work reveals his vision of a 'reality' beyond the veil how could it have no meaning or message

It seems to me (I'm forced to use this opening sentence a lot in this thread, now ain't I?) that there is no contradiction - it may be said so that LoTR has no inner message as it is a story and in itself a message. The message is in the telling. Of course, if one would dig, there one would find lot of symbols (consciously so in the revision) and implications and allusions, but from one of the possible points of you it verily may be said that all these are just parts that made up the bulk of the greater message - the story itself.

[Lalwendë]

I think that this essay by Pullman on Lewis (http://www.crlamppost.org/darkside.htm) puts paid to any idea that journalists are simply trying to 'bait' Pullman into making controversial statements about other writers, as this is his own willingly given opinion.

EDIT: I've just read through this transcript of a radio programme about the nature of fantasy (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/enc/stories/s510312.htm) which features Pullman and includes a lot about Tolkien. In the article, Pullman makes the comment:

Well the aim was always to tell the story. But you don't set out to preach, you don't set out to persuade or to give a lecture or to teach, heaven forbid, don't set out to teach. You just set out to entertain, to tell a story.

Which seems very contradictory to the times when he has criticised Tolkien for being mere entertainment. Isn't he saying the same of his own work here? Refuting the claim that he set out to put a message on the page?

Bear in mind that this programme seems to have had a lot of Tolkien fans on the panel, and it may have scared him a bit. ;) I'm also not sure of the unbiased nature of it as it is a religious programme of some sort.

EDIT AGAIN
And another interesting snippet (http://www.readerville.com/WebX?14@65.93OcaX9YecM^10@.ef6c70e/99) (hey, I ought to be making the tea, but I'm on a roll here ;)).

Scroll down this web chat and you'll see where Pullman himself joins in and he makes the following fascinating comment:

Fantasy and non-fantasy. Interesting! For better or worse, I've discovered, I am a fantasist. I resisted it for years, feeling that realism was a higher form, or nobler, or something. And I still enjoy reading realism much more than fantasy - most fantasy I've read is thin - I mean psychologically thin - unsatisfying. But my imagination catches fire with fantasy, and it burns fitfully and damply and with a lot of smoke and needs constant attention and fuss when I do realism. I guess I'm stuck with it. I do regret it, but it's like discovering that your daemon has turned out to be a dog and you always wanted a cat: you have to make the best of it. Whether I like it or not, I am a fantasist.

"Tell them stories ..." That was one of things I enjoyed most. When Mary sees the ghost of the old woman, the ghost says "Tell them stories," meaning of course that new ghosts have to tell the harpies their stories - true stories - in exchange for their passage back to the world. (True stories, because this is what I mean by the difference between "thin" fantasy and "rich" realism - Lyra's first, made-up story, which satisfied the people in the suburbs of the dead but which the harpies rejected brutally - whereas they listened avidly to her true story about the Oxford claybeds). The old woman's ghost says something like "Tell them true stories, and all will be well."

OK, this has got me thinking. Perhaps Pullman actually doesn't have a firm idea that he wants to get across, and this is why some of the things he says come across as contradictory and it could be why the end of HDM seems to fall apart; he has not settled what he really thinks, and so the messages are confused? Certainly Tolkien himself could be a bit like this - when we think about his work in a political context, and especially in his confusion over the symbolism of Galadriel and any religious meaning as time went by.

Some of what he says rings a bell with me. I also resist 'fantasy' as a lot of it is indeed 'thin', and yet it can be addictive. I know I'm not going to be successful, but I spend a lot of time searching out great fantasy; I'm 90% of the time disappointed. Loads of it is indeed like reading about "Krell The Cliche King from the Doom-mountains of Tharg". Hmm. But Tolkien's not like that! He is the original and his work is deep and poetic. I know that Pullman did not read Tolkien until well into adulthood, does this have a bearing on it? If you had read some vile fantasy works and then went to Tolkien you might just sigh and go "Oh God, not more ruddy Elves". I don't know. I'm sure someone here will be able to share what they felt?

Anyway, it looks as though Pullman here grudgingly (sheepishly?) admits that yes, he does like fantasy, even though much of it isn't much cop. Perhaps its that this is a different audience again to the reactionary, armchair iconoclasts and Islington types who devour the Observer on a Sunday and expect holy cows to be destroyed before their eyes?

And back to Tolkien. Its interesting his point about stories and about them being real, as I always get the sense that Tolkien's stories and characters are thoroughly real. How similar are tales of Aragorn/Arwen and Beren/Luthien to Tolkien's own experience of being separated from Edith? Sam as being like the ordinary but strong men he met in the Somme? Gollum is a mentally tormented human? Frodo's pain is like the pain of shellshock and PTSD? Eowyn's desperation to fight is like the desperation to fight of the 15 year old boys who lied in order to go to the battlefields of France? Tolkien's work is full of true stories.

[Bêthberry]

And back to Tolkien. Its interesting his point about stories and about them being real, as I always get the sense that Tolkien's stories and characters are thoroughly real. How similar are tales of Aragorn/Arwen and Beren/Luthien to Tolkien's own experience of being separated from Edith? Sam as being like the ordinary but strong men he met in the Somme? Gollum is a mentally tormented human? Frodo's pain is like the pain of shellshock and PTSD? Eowyn's desperation to fight is like the desperation to fight of the 15 year old boys who lied in order to go to the battlefields of France? Tolkien's work is full of true stories.

Okay, I haven't had and won't have time today to read over Lal's links but I can suggest a small proviso about this bit about real stories and Edith and Tolkien being separated from her.

Most of us I think know the story that Tolkien chose the inscription for his and Edith's gravestone, reading Beren for him and Luthien for her. We don't know if Edith agreed to this or not. And the story also goes that Tolkien once watched Edith dance as Beren did Luthien.

But what if we take Smith of Wootton Major as having some autobiographical significance, as being as 'real' as these other stories in the Legendarium?

Is Smith as real as the Beren/Luthien stories? Does Smith suggest that Tolkien had to be isolated, away from, distant his family? Was it something that he experienced which his family did not share? If so, how can Edith 'be' Luthien?

Is the 'reality' of fairy that it is a gift to special individuals and not everyone? Is fairy an isolating experience?

Of course, autobiography is not the only form of realism, so perhaps these questions are not what Lal had in mind.

But, I write in haste. 'Real' stories engage me now. ;)

[davem]

But what if we take Smith of Wootton Major as having some autobiographical significance, as being as 'real' as these other stories in the Legendarium?

This is the kind of thing I was trying to get at in my earlier post (no 108 (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpost.php?p=484444&postcount=108))

I'm not sure whether it takes us too far off topic, but perhaps it ties in whith my post on Tolkien's agreement that he had 'broken through the veil'.

We are, perhaps, not dealing here with 'relevance' to the Primary World, which Pullman places so much emphasis on, or with 'meaning' or a desire to change the world, but rather a specific experience of another 'world' or kind of 'reality'.

Tolkien seems to imply, in Smith, that Faery is a reality of a kind, a world which is open to certain individuals. Those who are permitted to enter have experiences which are perhaps denied to the rest of us - though we may experience it vicariously. Of course, it may be that the reports of those who have wandered there may open the way to others. If nothing else those accounts make us aware of that other world, that there is more going on (that there is more than one history of the world, as John Crowley put it).

It may be that, rather than Middle-earth being a feigned history of our world, is actually a true history (or one of them) of Faery.

But what is the role of these 'Elf-friends', these 'Walkers between the Worlds'? It is, certainly, a mediating role. They are a living link between this world & Faery, a bridge across a void of a kind. 'Elf-friends' in the Legendarium have high, but often tragic, destinies. Often they find they belong in neither world, usually they find it is their own world that they can no longer remain in - they pass into Faery at the end. This is true of Frodo, Bilbo, Sam, Tuor & Earendel. For others there is a final bereavement as they cannot in the end pass into Faery & must live out a lonely existence in their own world (Smith is the classic case).

It seems, perhaps, that 'Elf-friend' is a sacrificial role, & that a reward is not guaranteed. Yet Tolkien clearly feels that it is essential for the human race as a whole. (Two quotes from the Smith essay)


'It is of course possible that they have a 'moral obligation (the sanctions of which we do nor know). It may be contained in the word 'kinship , and also he due to the fact that in the last resort the enemy for enemies) of Faery are the same as those of Men. In certainty the Elvish world as here depicted is not independent of the existence of the human world, as distinct from Men. The world known to Men as their habitation did and could exist without Men; but not Men without it. It is probable that the world of Faery could not exist* without our world, and is affected by the events in it — the reverse being also true. The 'health' of both is affected by state of the other. Men have not the power to assist the Elvenfolk in the ordering and defence of their realm; but the Elves have the power (subject to finding co-operation from within) to assist men in the protection of our world, especially in the attempt to re-direct Men when their development tends to the defacing or destruction of their world. The Elves may thus have also an enlightened self-interest in human affairs.


They, the Elvenfolk are thus 'beneficent' with regard to Men, and are not wholly alien, though many things and creatures in Faery itself are alien to Men and even actively hostile. Their good will is seen mainly in attempting to keep or restore relationships between the two worlds, since the Elves (and still some Men) realize that this love of Faery is essential to the full and proper human development. The love of Faery is the love of love: a relationship towards all things, animate and inanimate, which includes love and respect, and removes or modifies the spirit of possession and domination. Without it even plain 'Utility' will in fact become less useful; or will turn to ruthlessness and lead only to mere power, ultimately destructive.* The Apprentice relationship in the tale is thus interesting. Men in a large part of their activities are or should be in an apprentice status as regards the Elven folk. In an attempt to rescue Wootton from its decline, the Elves reverse the situation, and the King of Faery himself comes and serves as an apprentice in the village.

The 'health' & even survival of the Elven world is dependent on the health & survival of the Human world. Hence, a connection between the worlds must be established & maintained by both sides.

Whether Tolkien thought of himself as an 'Elf-friend' is an open question, but Flieger names him as one. He did feel isolated quite often, & the simple explanation for this is the loss of his parents at an early age & the loss of his childhood friends in WWI. Yet is that the whole story? The way he gravitated to others like Lewis who also shared the same love of myth & legend (hence of Faery) perhaps can be explained by his need for people who could understand his own 'double' life.

[drigel]

I'm not sure whether it takes us too far off topic, but perhaps it ties in whith my post on Tolkien's agreement that he had 'broken through the veil'.
Thats the way I had always viewed that quote: Going from something like the early Silm to LOTR, was going from extreme (elvish POV) 3rd person to humble (lowly hobbit) 1st person would take not only a break in the veil, but also a few years of walking around behind it.

Not sure if this had been mentioned, but I just got through reading an article about the beginning of filming the 1st of HDM. Nichole Kidman getting an invite for a role.

[davem]

Not sure if this had been mentioned, but I just got through reading an article about the beginning of filming the 1st of HDM. Nichole Kidman getting an invite for a role.

I also note that the new Bond, Daniel Craig, is to play Lord Asriel.

'The name's Asriel. Lord Asriel. Licensed to kill (God)'

Wonder if they'll get Shirley Bassey to sing the theme song: 'Lord Asr-eel, he's the man, the man with deicidal tendencies....'

[Bêthberry]

I also note that the new Bond, Daniel Craig, is to play Lord Asriel.

'The name's Asriel. Lord Asriel. Licensed to kill (God)'

Wonder if they'll get Shirley Bassey to sing the theme song: 'Lord Asr-eel, he's the man, the man with deicide tendencies....'

I rather think that other English "B" list saviour, William Blake, might be chosen, given Pullman's great admiration for Blake. I think a version of his famous poem (well known as a hymn) might do nicely: Jerusalem (http://www.progressiveliving.org/william_blake_poetry_jerusalem.htm) , from his prophetic book Milton, another of Pullman's favourites.

Building Jerusalem on England's green and pleasant land? An early version of the republic of heaven? It is part of England's mythology that they are the descedents of the chosen people, after all. :D

;)

EDIT: For those of you who might know know Blake or the history of this poem, here's some info: and did those feet in ancient times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time)

[drigel]

IMDB states that other wanted actors are;
Ian McShane, Jason Isaacs and Samual L Jackson. That might be just enough to suck me in. I am a big McShane fan after seeing the Deadwood series.

[Bêthberry]

I think that this essay by Pullman on Lewis (http://www.crlamppost.org/darkside.htm) puts paid to any idea that journalists are simply trying to 'bait' Pullman into making controversial statements about other writers, as this is his own willingly given opinion.

. . . .

. . .

OK, this has got me thinking. Perhaps Pullman actually doesn't have a firm idea that he wants to get across, and this is why some of the things he says come across as contradictory and it could be why the end of HDM seems to fall apart; he has not settled what he really thinks, and so the messages are confused? Certainly Tolkien himself could be a bit like this - when we think about his work in a political context, and especially in his confusion over the symbolism of Galadriel and any religious meaning as time went by.

Some of what he says rings a bell with me. I also resist 'fantasy' as a lot of it is indeed 'thin', and yet it can be addictive. I know I'm not going to be successful, but I spend a lot of time searching out great fantasy; I'm 90% of the time disappointed. Loads of it is indeed like reading about "Krell The Cliche King from the Doom-mountains of Tharg". Hmm. But Tolkien's not like that! He is the original and his work is deep and poetic. I know that Pullman did not read Tolkien until well into adulthood, does this have a bearing on it? If you had read some vile fantasy works and then went to Tolkien you might just sigh and go "Oh God, not more ruddy Elves". I don't know. I'm sure someone here will be able to share what they felt?

Anyway, it looks as though Pullman here grudgingly (sheepishly?) admits that yes, he does like fantasy, even though much of it isn't much cop. Perhaps its that this is a different audience again to the reactionary, armchair iconoclasts and Islington types who devour the Observer on a Sunday and expect holy cows to be destroyed before their eyes?

And back to Tolkien. Its interesting his point about stories and about them being real, as I always get the sense that Tolkien's stories and characters are thoroughly real. How similar are tales of Aragorn/Arwen and Beren/Luthien to Tolkien's own experience of being separated from Edith? Sam as being like the ordinary but strong men he met in the Somme? Gollum is a mentally tormented human? Frodo's pain is like the pain of shellshock and PTSD? Eowyn's desperation to fight is like the desperation to fight of the 15 year old boys who lied in order to go to the battlefields of France? Tolkien's work is full of true stories.

Throwing this out as a 'hypothetical' for the sake of keeping the thread going. I've always read that article on the Lewis centenary as related to reading habits of today's readers. And I wonder if a little bit of this isn't involved also with Pullman's thoughts about Tolkien.

Perhaps what really gets Pullman's goat is muddled or confused reading. He begins with observing how the centenary is a marketing/merchandising event rather than a reading event. And then he continues by examining how the story treats true Christianity rather shabbily--even drawing on Tolkien to support his point. Perhaps what Pullman cannot abide is a situation in which people flock to a story without any strong sense of its consequences of its world view. He dislikes thoughtless reading and admiration for something which might be at odds with the general tenor of culture as he sees it? That is, he dislikes pop culture and would rather we pay closer attention to real story? I think I must go read again that chapter concerning Lyra's death and the harpies' reaction to her story.

[davem]

And then he continues by examining how the story treats true Christianity rather shabbily--even drawing on Tolkien to support his point.

I think Pullman's analysis of Christianity is a frankly a bit silly. As an athiest with an axe to grind one cannot reallly expect an unbiassed analysis from him but his statements are hardly even worth considering. Lewis' Christianity is perfectly orthodox & fairly mainstream as far as I can see. As a non-Christain myself I don't get any sense that the philosophy behind the boooks is 'life-hating' or that Lewis is saying anyone is 'better off dead'. The whole point (perfectly in line with Christian teaching) is that after death we become more alive, that death is merely a transition to a fuller life in another state. It is actually life affirming in that it sees life as so wonderful that it offers even more, even more intense life. Certainly it is hopeful - Pullman condemns Lewis for hating life, but Lewis offers the possibility of eternal life to his characters while he himself offers only disolution & nothingness after death.

I don't think he can actually claim much support from Tolkien - the quote he gives from Tolkien is not a condemnation of Lewis theology but of his playing around with myth.

Perhaps what Pullman cannot abide is a situation in which people flock to a story without any strong sense of its consequences of its world view. He dislikes thoughtless reading and admiration for something which might be at odds with the general tenor of culture as he sees it? That is, he dislikes pop culture and would rather we pay closer attention to real story?

To quote from the interview Squatter linked to yesterday:

He finds it surprising and pleasing that The Lord of the Rings has had such a success. It seems to him that nowadays almost any kind of fiction is mishandled, through not being sufficiently enjoyed. He thinks that there is now a tendency both to believe and teach in schools and colleges that “enjoyment” is an illiterate reaction; that if you are a serious reader, you should take the construction to pieces; find and analyse sources, dissect it into symbols, and debase it into allegory. Any idea of actually reading the book for fun is lost.

“It seems to me comparable to a man who having eaten anything, from a salad to a complete and well-planned dinner, uses an emetic, and sends the results for chemical analysis.”

Its no coincidence that Pullman was a teacher before he became a full time writer - it is clear that his approach to fiction is exactly as Tolkien describes here: "a tendency both to believe and teach in schools and colleges that “enjoyment” is an illiterate reaction; that if you are a serious reader, you should take the construction to pieces; find and analyse sources, dissect it into symbols, and debase it into allegory. Any idea of actually reading the book for fun is lost."

This is exactly what Pullman has done in his reading of LotR. The work cannot just be enjoyed, it must be taken to pieces, broken up to find its 'meaning', which 'meaning' must be analysed to see whether it is 'relevant' to 'the youth of today' or 'the man on the Clapham omnibus'. Will the reading of this book make the readers better, more constructive members of society? Will it tell them what we want them to know?

[Lalwendë]

Its no coincidence that Pullman was a teacher before he became a full time writer - it is clear that his approach to fiction is exactly as Tolkien describes here: "a tendency both to believe and teach in schools and colleges that “enjoyment” is an illiterate reaction; that if you are a serious reader, you should take the construction to pieces; find and analyse sources, dissect it into symbols, and debase it into allegory. Any idea of actually reading the book for fun is lost."

I'm afraid I'll have to defend Pullman on that point as I don't think he would agree with that method of reading at all. See my earlier post number 34 on this thread (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpost.php?p=481897&postcount=34) and The Isis Lecture (http://www.philip-pullman.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=66) for what Pullman thinks about the analytical method of teaching literature and English language. He advocates a creative approach, and is very much against the idea of too much adherence to and analysis of structure.

I still think that he 'kind of knows' what he wants to say, but he is getting his messages confused. It does seem that with his statement on 'spun candy' he would indeed advocate Structuralism and all that malarkey, but he's actually more in favour of a creative free for all and is closer to Tolkien than he dares to acknowledge. The main differences seem to lie in the moral messages (that's probably not the right term, but I can't think of the exact way of saying what I mean right now; oh, the irony!) the two wish/ed to put across.

[The Saucepan Man]

I think that there is a misunderstanding here over Pullman's approach, and that is what is leading to the assumption that his opinions are contradictory.

I have not re-read all of the materials linked to here, so I may be wrong, but the sense I get is not that Pullman "requires" a story to have a message, in the sense of preaching a particular doctrine, philosophy or worldview, but that it be "weighty" in the sense of providing material for thought.

Certainly, most of the materials here suggest that he subscribes to the Tolkienian view of the importance of a piece of fiction as entertainment, and I would agree with Lalwendë's assessment in this regard above. But it seems to me that Pullman's definition of an entertaining story is one which is (or, perhaps more correctly, which he finds to be) thought-provoking. That is not to say that he regards it necessary to pull a story apart in order to find the depth within it, the analytical approach which Tolkien disdains above. Rather, he considers that a story which provides material for thought (even if such thought occurs at a less than conscious level) is, essentially, a more entertaining one than one which does not. (The assessment of whether a particular story provides such material is, of course, a subjective one, although I am sure that we could all agree on examples of those stories which do not.)

His comments on LotR concerning its "triviality" and "spun candy" nature indicate quite clearly that he does not find such depth in LotR. This links in with the thread on Psychological Depth, which I started some time ago on the basis of a quote from Pullman. He finds that the characters lack psychological depth, that there is no "weight" to them and he cannot therefore regard them or their story as providing anything useful to say on the realities of life (as he perceives them). For him, LotR is merely the account of a series of events linked up with nice descriptions of the landscape. It has no depth. There is nothing there which "grabs" him from an intellectual or (I presume) emotinal point of view.

If I am right in my assessment of his approach, I rather agree with Pullman on many points here. I would agree that, from my perspective, a story is likely to be more entertaining if it has depth to it and provides material for thought. I would aso agree that, to an extent, many of the principal characters of LotR lack psychological depth. Where I would disagree with him is that it follows from this that LotR does not provide material for thought or, indeed, that there is no such material within it. That said, and as I have stated earlier, different people have different tastes and, if LotR does not "grab" him intellectually and emotionally in the same way that it grabs others, then no one can force him to like it.

And I would still maintain that, even though not all of Pullman's comments that we have been discussing here derive from "baiting" by journalists, LotR and (to a lesser degree) the Narnia books remain the principle peaks in the landscape within which he works and, professionally (as a writer), he is obliged to grapple with them, both within his own mind, and also publicly when discussing his works and their place within the fantasy genre.

[davem]

I'm afraid I'll have to defend Pullman on that point as I don't think he would agree with that method of reading at all. See my earlier post number 34 on this thread (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpost.php?p=481897&postcount=34) and The Isis Lecture (http://www.philip-pullman.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=66) for what Pullman thinks about the analytical method of teaching literature and English language. He advocates a creative approach, and is very much against the idea of too much adherence to and analysis of structure.



Well, I think there's a difference between what he says & what he actually does. He may condemn the analytical method but he still cannot resist breaking the story apart to find out what it 'means', what its 'message' is. He demands it have a message if it is to be taken seriously. He certainly cannot (it seems) enjoy a story simply as a story.

If we miss out ' that if you are a serious reader, you should take the construction to pieces' its difficult to argue that Tolkien was right about Pullman's approach:

a tendency both to believe and teach in schools and colleges that “enjoyment” is an illiterate reaction; find and analyse sources, dissect it into symbols, and debase it into allegory. Any idea of actually reading the book for fun is lost."

[The Saucepan Man]

He may condemn the analytical method but he still cannot resist breaking the story apart to find out what it 'means', what its 'message' is.Davem, please state your justification for this assertion, by reference to Pullman's own words.

Well, I think there's a difference between what he says & what he actually does.As I have indicated, I see no contradiction.

Pullman, like Tolkien, disdains the analytical, dissective approach and asserts that the primary aim of reading should be enjoyment. For him personally to enjoy a book, it must have some "depth" that resonates with him, which provokes thought in him. He finds no such depth in LotR. Therefore he does not enjoy LotR. Being a fantasy writer (and commentator) himself, it is inevitable that circumstances will arise in which he will be required to explain his feelings towards LotR, given the novel's stature within the fanatsy genre.

Where's the contradiction?

[davem]

Davem, please state your justification for this assertion, by reference to Pullman's own words.

I would think the fact that he has looked for 'meaning' in it, found none & therefore dismissed it as 'spun candy' rather than simply being able to enjoy it for what it is, not to mention that he has obviously ripped the Narnia books to bits in in order to 'critique' them would be enough to justify my statement.

[The Saucepan Man]

I would think the fact that he has looked for 'meaning' in it, found none & therefore dismissed it as 'spun candy' rather than simply being able to enjoy it for what it is ...I disagree. He expected depth from it, found none sufficent to satisfy his personal tastes/interest and therefore did not find it entertaining.

... not to mention that he has obviously ripped the Narnia books to bits in in order to 'critique' them ...There is a difference between advocating the dissection and analysis of books and automatically approaching every book on this basis as a matter of course, on the one hand, and feeling obliged to do so with regard to paticular works as a de facto fantasy writer/commentator on the fantasy genre, on the other. Pullman's critique of the Narnia books is based upon the latter approach, not the former.

It appears that, in contrast to his reaction to LotR, Pullman found depth within the Narnia books, but it was based upon a philosophy/tradition with which he profoundly disagreed.

I still see no inherent contradiction in his words and nor do I see much of a basis for labelling him ignorant, other than the fact that his philosophy and tastes differ from your own.

[davem]

It appears that, in contrast to his reaction to LotR, Pullman found depth within the Narnia books, but it was based upon a philosophy/tradition with which he profoundly disagreed.

I still see no inherent contradiction in his words and nor do I see much of a basis for labelling him ignorant, other than the fact that his philosophy and tastes differ from your own.

I think anyone who thinks the Narnia books are 'deep' but LotR is not is a bit shallow.

[HerenIstarion]

He expected depth from it, found none sufficent to satisfy his personal tastes/interest and therefore did not find it entertaining

Verily so, and it would have been all just right and proper, if Mr.Pullman just contented himself with mere statement of dislike. After all, it's again just right and proper to like/dislike any piece of art, and also right and proper to state one's impression.

But, and grave 'but' at that, where Mr.Pullman crosses the line and, in my opinion, deserves davem's ire (mine too), is aggresive and mean attacks he lets himself sink to. Mentor's tone does not help either, and even so his attacks would have been acceptable in proper place, say, in literary discussion on a forum like BD here - let him state his points and let us state ours, that would at least be honest. But lo - he attacks Tolkien from pulpits and places where he's the sole preacher. Irritable, to say the least.

Imagine some writer (famous enogh, that is) saying things about Pullman Pullman himself says about Tolkien, but evading direct dialogue with Pullman on the subject. I would dearly love to watch PP's reaction, now I would

[davem]

Have a chat with Mr Pullman:

http://www.philip-pullman.com/about_the_writing.asp

[The Saucepan Man]

But, and grave 'but' at that, where Mr.Pullman crosses the line and, in my opinion, deserves davem's ire (mine too), is aggresive and mean attacks he lets himself sink to.You may have a point as far as Moorcock is concerned, but I think that you are rather over-stating the case with regard to Pullman. Would you bat an eyelid if he said the same things about a writer for whom your own feelings were neutral?

Mentor's tone does not help either, and even so his attacks would have been acceptable in proper place, say, in literary discussion on a forum like BD here - let him state his points and let us state ours, that would at least be honest. But lo - he attacks Tolkien from pulpits and places where he's the sole preacher.Quite right! Let's ban all literary lectures where the lecturer dares to criticise another work ... :rolleyes:

Imagine some writer (famous enogh, that is) saying things about Pullman Pullman himself says about Tolkien, but evading direct dialogue with Pullman on the subject.I hardly think that Pullman evades direct dialogue on the subject of Tolkien's works. Of course, it is rather difficult for him to engage in dialogue with Tolkien himself, but I have no doubt that his public comments provoke comment from "outraged" Tolkien fans (as Jonathan Hari found out). As davem suggests, you could engage with him yourself by using the link above. You never know, he might even reply to a sensibly and courteously argued critique of his statements.

[davem]

You never know, he might even reply to a sensibly and courteously argued critique of his statements.

Or you could send him his own statements back but replacing 'Tolkien' & 'LotR' with 'Pullman' & 'HDM' & see if he consider's them insulting....

[HerenIstarion]

SpM, you may have a point there too, and maybe I'm indeed overreacting, but 'literary lectures' analogy is also taking it a bit too far. Besides, I do not think that Mr.Pullman is paid for his 'critique' as any honest lecturer would, now is he? :D

But I do believe that davem here may have a point too (We have points all round, it seems. Let us join them and we'll have a line...). I would be mighty curious to witness PP's reaction to one of his own lectures with HDM in it instead of LoTR (provided that the lecture is relatively old so he would not recognize it :D)

[Bêthberry]

Or you could send him his own statements back but replacing 'Tolkien' & 'LotR' with 'Pullman' & 'HDM' & see if he consider's them insulting....


I would be mighty curious to witness PP's reaction to one of his own lectures with HDM in it instead of LoTR (provided that the lecture is relatively old so he would not recognize it )

See, that's just the point. I think any kind of substitution would of necessity change the context of the comments. In being a substitution, it would become a different rhetorical subject--different kettle of fish. It would truly then be deceitful and mean spirited. More honest would be to address PP with new words, openly.

Honestly, I am really glad none of you guys are fundamentalists who object to cartoons or this forum would really go up in flames. :D

[Lalwendë]

I'm reading HDM again, and once again I'm finding it to be a fantastic read - it's definitely in my top ten books, if not top five. And in some ways it brings me back to the sense of excitement I once got from reading Tolkien for the first time; much of HDM is very upsetting and the story is intense.

Anyway, this brought me back to some more thoughts.

The similarities between Tolkien and Pullman are startling, not just in terms of their biographies - both losing a father at an early age, and both were brought up with a strong religious influence, in Pullman's case CofE. But other things are similar - both have an intense love of simple story and narrative, and its story that motivated Pullman to write HDM and story that tempted Tolkien out of naval-gazing personal language development and into writing proper books.

Both men seem to have an anarchic streak too. There's an obvious shared love for humour, and the sense of the silly and naughty. They also seem to want to kick against 'the man' in some way - Pullman with his comments on 'worthy' state education and Tolkien's curmudgeonly grumblings about The State. Pullman's interviews are filled with controversial statements which he later contradicts by saying something which seems to be exactly the opposite. And didn't Tolkien do just that?! His grandiose and much mis-quoted statements about 'mythologies for England' and that comment about his work being 'Catholic' which he then went on to contradict with his statements on allegory. Of course, Tolkien wasn't averse to knocking other writers himself; his more polite times probably stopped him from being so nasty. Both writers are/were stirrers of the proverbial. Perhaps Pullman has his eye on flaming debates when he's long gone and is laughing away at us from the outer reaches of the Universe. ;)

So where's the essential difference between them? I think it lies in that Pullman admires Reason and Tolkien admires Romance. Pullman states he was deeply influenced by Blake and Milton - and interestingly that he was amused that Milton ended up making Satan look quite cool, actually (my words, not his - it was something I said at Uni that made the tutor laugh, but is similar to what Pullman thinks!). The church he depicts with hate in HDM is the church had the Reformation failed - dogmatic and untempered by Reason. I'm noting that he never once mentions Jesus and is not actually a classical Atheist, more a curious lapsed Liberal Protestant (like me). Tolkien however, certainly viewed from the perspective of Pullman, harks back to the pre-Reformation. However, viewed in isolation, I always find Tolkien to be a Modernist, not a Medievalist - bleak and moribund and forever focussing on the need for people to make an effort to make the world a decent place (and stop relying on Elves).

Infantile? Spun candy? Reading Pullman again, and looking at what he pours into HDM I have two thoughts.

Firstly, he's being unfair when he criticises Tolkien for having Elves and Hobbits and 'unreal' creatures. Erm, has he not got talking bears? Witches? (the witches have a fascinating feminist aspect but I'm not going into that) Cliff Ghasts? Mad creatures are a feature of fantasy. I think this is another example of that familiar big mouth that Pullman and Tolkien shared.

Secondly, I simply think that Pullman is missing the big ideas contained in Tolkien's work about the environment, war and mortality. Strangely, for a writer who poured so much detail into his work, Tolkien deals with his issues in a poetic way, without going into the detail. He uses a big brush. Pullman on the other hand does not shy away from things which are actually quite brave things to put into a kids' book - complicated astrophysics, complicated adult relationships, complicated political machinations. He uses detail.

Anyway, I'll no doubt think of more when I've finished reading. However, the fact remains that both writers aren't/weren't averse to a bit of stirring, and Pullman's comments on Tolkien probably ought to be taken in that light.

[davem]

The church he depicts with hate in HDM is the church had the Reformation failed - dogmatic and untempered by Reason. I'm noting that he never once mentions Jesus and is not actually a classical Atheist, more a curious lapsed Liberal Protestant (like me). Tolkien however, certainly viewed from the perspective of Pullman, harks back to the pre-Reformation.

I'm not sure the Church Pullman depicts in HDM bears any relation to the real Church at all. He has effectively created a twisted caricature of the Church which retains only the negative aspects & pretends the positive aspects never existed. Where are the Saints, the Mystics, the poets & artists? He fetes Milton & Blake while at the same time apparently 'ignoring' the positive aspects of Christianity which was central to their thinking. The Church (& it is the Christian Chrurch - well specifically the Catholic church - which he is attacking) is presented as cruel, ignorant & effectively 'Satanic' - which is odd in a way - by rejecting the existence of objective Evil in the form of the devil he has to turn 'God' into the devil. Effectively the death of 'God' in HDM is equivalent to the fall of Sauron in LotR (& one could compare the seperation of Will & Lyra with the seperation of Sam & Frodo in LotR).

Strangely, for a writer who poured so much detail into his work, Tolkien deals with his issues in a poetic way, without going into the detail. He uses a big brush. Pullman on the other hand does not shy away from things which are actually quite brave things to put into a kids' book - complicated astrophysics, complicated adult relationships, complicated political machinations. He uses detail.

I find this to be the opposite of my take on Tolkien & Pullman. I find Tolkien's focus on detail - from the physical detail of plant & landscape to the complex interrelationships of races & Politics - one of the most interesting things about his work, & rather than finding Pullman's approach complicated I find it overblown.

[The Mouth of Sauron]

Please remember that LOTR is a novel .

I am the Mouth of Sauron .

[davem]

Please remember that LOTR is a novel .

I am the Mouth of Sauron .

Technically its an epic romance....

[Lalwendë]

I'm not sure the Church Pullman depicts in HDM bears any relation to the real Church at all. He has effectively created a twisted caricature of the Church which retains only the negative aspects & pretends the positive aspects never existed. Where are the Saints, the Mystics, the poets & artists? He fetes Milton & Blake while at the same time apparently 'ignoring' the positive aspects of Christianity which was central to their thinking. The Church (& it is the Christian Chrurch - well specifically the Catholic church - which he is attacking) is presented as cruel, ignorant & effectively 'Satanic' - which is odd in a way - by rejecting the existence of objective Evil in the form of the devil he has to turn 'God' into the devil. Effectively the death of 'God' in HDM is equivalent to the fall of Sauron in LotR (& one could compare the seperation of Will & Lyra with the seperation of Sam & Frodo in LotR).


Actually, the Church depicted by Pullman is not really Catholic, its some extreme form of Calvinism where Calvin simply deposes the Papacy and replaces it with something more extreme. The Catholic Church was not the only Church with an extreme dogma in those times. Calvin had his own Inquisition and a Consistory (Consistorial Court in HDM) and set up a rigid hierarchy similar to that seen in HDM.

As I've said, HDM depicts a world where its as though the Reformation never happened, well, that's probably not entirely right, as not all traditions descending from the Reformation were necessarily Liberal and infused with Reason. And indeed, Pullman does include a lot of aspects of extremes of religions such as mentioning harm done to children in the name of religion (like the recent controversy of African families sedning children have 'demons' cast out by being beaten to death), and he also criticises the idea of 'confession' being a way of buying your way out of sin in the world of Lyra, which is indeed a criticism of Catholicism.

EDIT: and I have to add, that when I say Reformation, I have always got in mind specifically Anglicanism and the English Reformation, as its the one I know about. ;) Possibly this is the Reformation Pullman also mentally refers to as his Grandfather was an Anglican Minister, and some notable Anglicans, including The Archbishop of Canterbury, have lauded HDM with high praise as it actually focusses on the misuse of dogma, not on Christianity being bad in itself. As I've said, Jesus isn't in HDM, there is no war against him.

[Lalwendë]

Rather than begin a new thread, this seems to fit here best.

There's been a new interview with Pullman where he mentions Tolkien. Note, he does not knock Tolkien, but his imitators!

Read these:
Guardian Article (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/08/a_very_grownup_childrens_autho.html)
Literary Review Article (http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/pullman_08_07.html)

And the Killer Quote:
How much were you itching to invent alternative worlds before embarking on 'Northern Lights'?

I wasn't itching at all. It took me entirely by surprise. I always took a dim view of fantasy - still do in fact. Most of it is trash, but then most of everything is trash. It seemed to me writers of fantasy in the Tolkien tradition had this wonderful tool that could do anything and they did very little with it. They were rather like the inventors of the subtle knife who used it to steal candy when they could have done much more.

The first book I think really did what fantasy can do, besides Paradise Lost, was a book published in 1920 called The Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. It's a very poorly written, clumsily constructed book which nevertheless has the force, the power, the intensity of genius. He uses fantasy to say something profound about morality - none of Tolkien's imitators do this.

Another thing about fantasy - I'm sure that far more adults have read His Dark Materials because they were published as children's books than would have done if they had been published as fantasy. Nor was I itching to write about religion. I originally wanted to write a story about a girl who goes into a room where she shouldn't be and has to hide when someone comes in and by chance overhears something she's not supposed to hear. A little later I discovered she had a daemon, that was the point at which I realised I'd got hold of a story somehow that I could use - no, you don't use a story - that I could explore, and say something about Kleist's essay which I had come across fifteen years before. The religious theme evolved as part of what Lyra has to struggle against and give up.

I have to say I agree with him. I don't like fantasy because most of it is flippin' dreadful. I like certain fantasy works - and when they are good, they are the best books it's possible to read. Pullman is right. Tolkien's imitators, writers who have attempted to follow in his tradition, have just not been up to scratch.

Pullman wrote something based on ideas of Milton and Blake; Gaiman uses forms of graphic novels and ancient fairy tales combined with modern horrors; Clarke utilises the form and tone of the 18th century novel; Rowling makes use of the traditional 'school story'. No Elves (Dyson would be pleased ;) ). Few unconquerable Dark Lords. Ambiguity. Peril.

[Bêthberry]

Quite by serendipity I came across this thread, now 13 years old. We had fun, didn't we?

I still enjoy Pullman, in fact, even more now than I did then. How much better I could have framed my points.

But the real purpose of my post now is simply to add some detail about Pullman. Oxford has given him an honorary degree. And in January 2019 (or was it 2018?) he was knighted for his services to literature. A knight bachelor.

The movie was terrible, as bad an adaptation as PJ's Hobbit. But the new TV serial is smashing.

[Mister Underhill]

Hey, lady! Fancy meeting you here! I almost couldn't believe my eyes. :eek:

"How much better I could have framed my points" is always a recurring thought every time I read through some of these old threads -- that or a cringe at the point I was attempting to make in the first place. :rolleyes:

We watched the show too here at Chez Underhillo. My not so little anymore hobbit really grooved on the idea of a constant animal companion that you could talk to.

Your info about Pullman being knighted made me think of Wodehouse:

"Do they knight birds like him?"

"Oh, yes, sir. A gentleman of Mr. Trotter's prominence in the world of publishing is always in imminent danger of receiving the accolade."

"Danger? Don't these bozos like being knighted?"

"Not when they are of Mr. Trotter's retiring disposition, sir. He would find it a very testing ordeal. It involves wearing satin knee-breeches and walking backwards with a sword between the legs, not at all the sort of thing a sensitive gentleman of regular habits would enjoy."

[Mithadan]

Hello old friends!

I enjoyed the books when they first came out. They are on my re-read list, along with several thousand pages of other stuff. I too despised the movie, to the point where I have now nearly forgotten it. I will need to check out the series.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Pullman's attitude reminds me very much of Moorcock's "epic Pooh" putdown, and I think both come from a similar place: they are didactic writers, polemicists as much as novelists, and they can't abide the fact that A) Tolkien was not one, and B) what Tolkien "takes as read" in his legendarium (a Deity fundamentally just, hereditary monarchies, a sense that the world doesn't absolutely suck everywhere all the time, and (for Moorcock) not a hint of Marxism) naturally gets their hackles up.

It's hard to understate the degree to which Tolkien's Edwardian Tory Catholicism simply rubs certain politicized literary quarters the wrong way, simply by existing. (Even though, especially if one reads Letters, one finds that his views were not as conventional as appear on the surface; Tolkien was rather Bilbo-ish in that regard).

[Morthoron]

Pullman's attitude reminds me very much of Moorcock's "epic Pooh" putdown, and I think both come from a similar place: they are didactic writers, polemicists as much as novelists, and they can't abide the fact that A) Tolkien was not one, and B) what Tolkien "takes as read" in his legendarium (a Deity fundamentally just, hereditary monarchies, a sense that the world doesn't absolutely suck everywhere all the time, and (for Moorcock) not a hint of Marxism) naturally gets their hackles up.

It's hard to understate the degree to which Tolkien's Edwardian Tory Catholicism simply rubs certain politicized literary quarters the wrong way, simply by existing. (Even though, especially if one reads Letters, one finds that his views were not as conventional as appear on the surface; Tolkien was rather Bilbo-ish in that regard).

There are a certain percentage of folks who just can't take things in context with the era in which a work is written and the background of the writer of that given era. This past generation seems to be one of revisionism and homogenization, rather than perception.

In a slightly different vein in the States, but revisionist nonetheless, there has been concerted efforts for over a century to get the novels The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer banned from classrooms and libraries for the alleged racism and racial slurs that were part of the idiom of the era, and a fundamental issue the writer wrestled with in the books themselves.

Humorously enough, Mark Twain was a devout abolitionist, anti-racist and supporter of the emancipation of slaves. But rather than taking things in context and using the book as a learning tool for racism that still remains an issue, bans periodically go into effect.

Twain, for his part, took it in stride, because even in his lifetime there were bannings. Twain wrote in 1885:

"The Committee of the Public Library of Concord, Mass., have given us a rattling tip-top puff which will go into every paper in the country. They have expelled Huck from their library as 'trash and suitable only for the slums.' That will sell 25,000 copies for us sure."

Twain, like Tolkien, remained relatively unrepentant throughout their lives for how their works may be construed. And bravo for that.