'Spun Candy' anyone?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

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

Originally Posted by Lal

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]

Originally Posted by Bb

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

Found this [/QUOTE]here

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 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]

Originally Posted by davem

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]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

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.

[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]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

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!.