Phillip Pullman

@JustSpeculation

I've found myself thinking more and more about Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" recently. He looks at the world in terms of a romantic understanding vs a classical one, by which he means seeing quality in impressions and appearance on the one side, and on the other seeing it in the underlying systems and principles behind the world. It has always struck me that GC types are much more classical, and the TRA types more romantic. Pullman is a complete romantic. To TRAs, we are square and they are hip.

I must re-read the book.

Using the Classical vs Romantic analogy is an interesting idea JustSpeculation.

I think dissolving boundaries in general is artistic, and Romantic.

But there is something about literally cutting up bodies and hurting them with hormones, or being unable to be flexible within the boundaries of the canvas/sculpture/building /your born sex which is un Zen and un-artistic imo

Think of a Cezanne mountain with all the myriad parts still reassembled back into a unity which is quite as strong as any in Poussin.

We need to understand the many parts that make up each of us without destroying our integrity in the process.

In the back of my mind I think I have a memory of P P being against FGM. Can anyone remember this from the books, or something he said in the 1990s?

Thanks for reminding me of this book. I will re-read. I wonder how much influence it had on my long-held distrust of Romanticism? I long since came to the conclusion that it's all about selfishness and self-importance

Abhannmor I couldn't agree more. He's a very confused man. Vehemently atheist, but brought up by his vicar grandfather whom he loved and respected. Anti God, but loves the Book of Common Prayer. I liked the first 3 Dark Materials books, but he is a dishonest writer, pretending to oppose Christianity by building his own bizarre version and knocking that down.
That sounds a familiar method, actually.

Years ago someone asked me about Philip Pullman's books and I said I like them, but there's something weird about them. The more I thought about it, the less I could understand why a middle aged man chose to write about a precocious adolescent who is held back from the awakening of her sexuality by conservative forces.

Pullman has resigned as president of the Society of Authors over the Kate Clanchy issue (presumably).

When it became clear that statements of mine were being regarded as if they represented the views of the Society as a whole (although they did nothing of the sort, and weren’t intended to), and that I was being pressed by people both in and out of the Society to retract them and apologise, I realised that I would not be free to express my personal opinions as long as I remained President.

Given the current gender bubble we are in, men like Pullman will do the safe thing which is to side with those who would really go after him if he did not.

It's dreadfully sad.

I don't think that Lewis would have had Twitter. He wrote an essay, a rather good one actually, about how the radio was impacting people's thinking because they never had to be really alone with their thoughts for long periods of time.

< Wonders if the Unconscious Bias training had the right effect >

He's been being really quite extraordinarily obnoxious on Twitter today.

I have read it, and I maintain that it is classist and very othering.

He need to realise that these people are toxic and there's no point in trying to appease them. They're drunk with the power that intimidating others gives them and nothing will stop them - until their turn for being in the firing line arrives.

Per Private Eye Pullman was sentenced to undergo urgent re-education as the first stage of what the committee called his
'rehabilitation'

The Kate Clanchy book is wonderful. I’d recommend reading the whole book rather than a few quotes taken out of context. A former student wrote in the Sunday Times that she was very happy with the way she was portrayed in the book.

twitter.com/AmandaPCraig/status/1438474116907012096

Apparently he was sentenced to unconscious bias training, in his absence.

[quote MondayYogurt]Society of Authors distances itself from Philip Pullman’s tweets

www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/11/society-of-authors-philip-pullman-tweets-kate-clanchy[/quote]
Does anyone have a recent copy of Private Eye who could confirm this summary is accurate, please?

And, of course the Society of Authors saw the policy in the other images as the logical next step in their commitment.

@Ereshkigalangcleg they were gunning for her long before the #IStandWithMaya tweet. Depressingly, fantasy series fandom seems to be a major breeding ground for all this, especially the 'young women hating middle aged women' incarnation of it.

@transdimensional I used to sometimes read 'The Mary Sue' until they did an attack on JKR based on Twitter accounts she followed in mid 2019.

They wrote something awful quite recently too.

I'm a Spectator/Times/Telegraph/Spiked- grow up and stop whinging sort of person but extracts from Kate Glanchy's book on various Twitter threads are pretty appalling.