Phillip Pullman

You believe spiked-online?

That counts as nuanced these days. No need to actually address what an article says, just disparage the platform.

Oxford, Svalbard, Citigazze, armoured bears, witches, spectres, daemons and Lee Scoresby were brilliant. The third book was overwritten. La Belle Savage was interesting but largely unnecessary. I gave up 2/3rds through The Secret Commonwealth.

I don't think I got that far. Loved the first two books, some brilliant conceits, characters and a good pacy plot. Then it all got tortuous, overdone, and tedious: like Pullman was trying to work out deeper and more and more portentuous and Important meanings, tying himself in knots with the Dust theories etc.

He's high on the smell of his own farts, I'm afraid.

The (wonderful) writer Amanda Craig tweeted the piece. He's replying to her. And now Jo Bartosch, who actually wrote it, has replied.

To use the parlance of Georgette Heyer, she's given him a true set-down!

Philip Pullman: You believe spiked-online?

Jo Bartosch: Hi Philip, that’s my article. Would you care to point out any errors or inaccuracies? I take my job very seriously, unlike you I don’t write fantasy.

Check out that ratio! 2,217 likes and counting. Philip's comment has received... 27 likes

@HelenaRavenclaw charity shops are always full of Pullman books, so have a look there. Or ebay, secondhand bookseller Abe books or similar

HelenaRavenclaw

If you're still reading the books, and making both positive and megative comments, you've sufficiently separated the art from the artist. You're not proposing stealing his work, but borrowing from the library, and libraries buy books (money to author!), replace copies damaged by wear and tear (money to author!), and make annual royalty payments to writers and illustrators through a Byzantine scheme known as public lending right (money to author!)

The campaigning of the Society of Authors led to the creation of the scheme in 1979, so I guarantee that he is registered for it.

Borrow the book and fret not. If you end up really liking how he's ended the trilogy, you might end up wanting the set so you can reread them any time you want. If he hasn't written the book well enough for you to want to own the set, that is his problem.

Jo Bartosch's Spiked Online piece is dated July 2020. The tweets are July 2022. I wonder why Pullman is commenting now, especially as things have move on - not that PP would know that - and not in Mermaids' favour. Curious.

Now I am seriously considering whether to boycott buying Pullman's books. I already own the His Dark Materials trilogy and really enjoyed it, but was going to wait until the 3rd volume of Book of Dust is released before I buy a box set of the Book of Dust trilogy. I borrowed the first and second volumes of BoD from the library and I agree with PP that La Belle Sauvage was ok. The Secret Commonwealth's core premise was very interesting but the writing was very rambling and introduced far too many side characters that were very difficult to keep track of. It did end on a big cliffhanger though and I am definitely going to read the 3rd BoD to see the resolution.

The question is, should I refrain from purchasing all 3 BoD volumes and just be content with borrowing them from the library? The thought of giving money to this incorrigible misogynist makes me sick, and yet I feel that I ought to apply the 'separate the artist from the art' principle here!

He weighed in again recently on the Kate Clanchy debate. He had nothing useful to say, regardless of which side one was on there.

Re the books whole heartedly agree, Oxford, Svalbard, Citigazze, armoured bears, witches, spectres, daemons and Lee Scoresby were brilliant. The third book was overwritten. La Belle Savage was interesting but largely unnecessary. I gave up 2/3rds through The Secret Commonwealth.

No chance.

It'll be interesting to see if he replies to Jo's tweet.

His ability to occasionally open his mouth just long enough to put another foot in it are quite astonishing.

’You believe [insert name here]?’

It doesn’t matter who says it. It matters what evidence they have.

Oh dear. Our Phillip has jumped in again. This time questioning a tweet about an article by Jo Bartosch on Mermaids.

Such an odd man

twitter.com/philippullman/status/1543312447762735106?s=21&t=R0U_M5mo7e2h-ZjrOLjpxg

Article:

www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/03/mermaids-leading-children-up-the-trans-path/

He’s a fantastic writer. No arguments from me. But the work itself raises questions.

But the 'relationship' between Malcolm and Lyra in The Book of Dust, albeit unconsummated by the end of the second volume, is as unconvincing as it's creepy on every conceivable level.

Then I look back and see that the primary antagonist of His Dark Materials was a female, the figure who takes the role of the serpent, Mary Malone, another female, and 'Eve', like a good little girl, resists the temptation this time around ...

Yep, definitely a pattern emerging there.

Philip Pullman is one of the many people who would be well-advised not to post on Twitter. He repeatedly weighs in on subjects he doesn't understand.

I meant, isn’t that in itself …

@MyLittlePhonyPony
I have just looked at ‘A Patch of Black ‘ by Rachel Rooney read on You Tube. I agree, it is enchanting. It is terrible to know she has been so badly bullied, and her book ‘My Body is Me’ accused of being political anti- trans propaganda.

As for the people who lobbied schools into teaching children the harmful idea that people can be born in the wrong bodies, is that in itself political propaganda coming from a lobby group?

@MangyInseam
Thank you, that is very interesting.
@MyLittlePhonyPony
Thanks, I’ll look for that book too.

@ScrollingLeaves a patch of black in a wonderful Rooney book if you have young children.

I always noticed in my own life, and guessed that it might be universal, that pre about 14 people seem to have a completely different way of experiencing the world - with all the senses, saturated by every moment - then quite suddenly that capacity disappears. (Hence a childhood memory is always richer and more evocative than one acquired later.)
I thought the change from mutable to fixed daemons reflected that.

Yes, and it's the same time that people tend to lose the capacity to play in the same way that children do, totally absorbed in a pretend world. I think it's about the development of abstract thought.

There's actually a ton of really interesting theological writing about the implications of the idea of innocence and it's relation to free will and knowing, including in literature, Pullman always seemed to me to start off with an interesting scenario and some of the images and ideas are exciting, but it didn't quite come out in the end. It falls flat in some way, or starts to strain to try and push the story to say what he wants.

It might be the case as a pp says that the problem is his own view is not really that systematic. Too many contradictions that he doesn't know how to untie.

@MangyInseam
Thank you for that explanation. I had never realised that. I was always a bit perplexed by the Magisterium’s aims apart from removing free will/killing the children’s souls.

I always noticed in my own life, and guessed that it might be universal, that pre about 14 people seem to have a completely different way of experiencing the world - with all the senses, saturated by every moment - then quite suddenly that capacity disappears. (Hence a childhood memory is always richer and more evocative than one acquired later.)
I thought the change from mutable to fixed daemons reflected that.

Anyway, thanks again for explaining. I hadn’t realised there was a hint of a ‘sex will save you’ message ‘don’t let the Magisterium stop you.’ I do find that a bit creepy when adults enter into that on behalf of children.

I am horrified to hear what has happened to Rachel Rooney, that P P seems to have endorsed by backing up Clare’s bullying attacks against her. I plan to order My Body is Me and any others by her and ask local libraries to get It if they haven’t got it already.

I understand Pullman’s work. It’s anti-establishment and draws on Blake, who was (or was regarded as) in favour of the removal of State control of sexuality, believing religious and State control of those areas of the human experience were oppressive. Pullman uses ‘dust’ as a metaphor for knowledge, and the control of dust/knowledge by the Magisterium allegorically, symbolising the control of human thought and action, including of sexuality, by conservative forces.

All well and good, but when he chooses specifically adolescent ‘knowledge’ and sexuality as his theme, it makes me think he’d been watching a bit too much The Blue Lagoon.

plus the whole Dust thing is really wonky and inconsistent and I'm not sure he always knows what he means by it himself.

Should have added, it's a fairly uninformed reading of the text to base his whole set of novels on, given it was a theme pretty well address by patristic authors who were quite clear that humans remaining childlike in a foolish sense wasn't the intent of the story.