Feminism: chat
Hawkins001 · 27/03/2022 23:42
Not sure if this is what's the op is referring too www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10652155/Sir-Philip-Pullman-QUITS-president-Society-Authors-condemned-Kate-Clanchy.html
PollyPaintsFlowers · 27/03/2022 23:49
PollyPaintsFlowers · 27/03/2022 23:51
Hawkins001 · 27/03/2022 23:54
@PollyPaintsFlowers
I did not realise that, certainly omg 😲behaviour and unacceptable language.
Hawkins001 · 27/03/2022 23:57
Not sure if this thread is also related to the ops post,
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4099490-Rachel-Rooney-criticised-by-Philip-Pulman#prettyPhoto
nightwakingmoon · 28/03/2022 00:29
Ah yes, this Philip Pullman, who objected to visitors being DBS checked before visiting schools because he thought this was something personally insulting to him, and refused to do school talks as a result.
Nice as always to see a man with his priorities in the right place 
:
www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-authors-idUSTRE56F2TI20090716
nightwakingmoon · 28/03/2022 00:38
Also, I’ve never understood the HDM hype. The first book is well written and the universe is well realised. The second and third are pretty awful — baggy, ponderous, massively overwritten and tedious, and desperately in need of some serious red pen from an editor.
And I thought some of it was distinctly weird (doesn’t he deliberately and coyly titillate the reader about whether the two twelve year old kids have sex at the end, supposedly to save humanity, and this is meant to be some kind of great meaningful post-lapsarian task of freedom and awakening — rather than actually what it is, which is just quite inappropriate?)
Kanaloa · 28/03/2022 00:58
@nightwakingmoon
And I thought some of it was distinctly weird (doesn’t he deliberately and coyly titillate the reader about whether the two twelve year old kids have sex at the end, supposedly to save humanity, and this is meant to be some kind of great meaningful post-lapsarian task of freedom and awakening — rather than actually what it is, which is just quite inappropriate?)
I agree that the first book was very good and unfortunately followed by two mediocre ones in my opinion. Like he had set up all this anticipation but then just wasn’t sure where to go with it.
I’m not that surprised he’s a bit of a dick, he’s done distinctly dickish things before.
Kanaloa · 28/03/2022 01:00
I also thought it kind of felt like nothing ‘came together’ in the end. Like all the threads of bits from the other two books were still just there. Not a very satisfying ending. Although I’ve only read the original three, never read the follow ups or prequels.
nightwakingmoon · 28/03/2022 01:12
Yeah absolutely Kanaloa — he set up what seemed like it was going to be a really complex plot and interesting places; and then it all just fizzled out at the end into a boring plot and a disorganised laborious rant.
The do-they-don’t-they coyness about whether the kid protagonists have sex under the tree (heavy handed symbolism much, Phil?) is just so kind of grubby IMO. As far as I recall he was always very coy about that in interviews, and whether it happens or not, but the trajectory of the book seems to make it pretty clear.
And that for me is kind of not okay — I’m far from prudish but in a children’s book it always seemed to me like an in-plain-sight kind of a move. Fifteen year old characters, yes maybe. Twelve? Hmm. Yes of course they’re fictional, but twelve year old kids having sex is not okay, even if it is under the aegis of some kind of grand artistic licence allowed to old men who write about Serious Things. It’s always set my ick factor off and spoiled the whole series for me tbh.
nightwakingmoon · 28/03/2022 01:47
Yes absolutely — it felt like I’m the third book he’d just thought “nah, that’ll do — bit of religious symbolism and I can’t be bothered to do any more”.
It’s also pretty lazy to go with the “sex is akshually really great and liberating even though the church says you mustn’t do it, kids” theme — very much a belated and tired Boomer sensibility left over from the 60s and 70s.
Now, you’d think that his critiques of religious ideology would mean he’d be suspicious of genderism, but no, he’s all for it. Why? I very much suspect he sees “gender critical” women just as some kind of uptight Mary Whitehouse pearl-clutchers who didn’t get with the sexual liberation era, and would faint at a visit to Carnaby Street on seeing the liberated Youth and their swinging ways, and want to ban “free love”.
That’s basically I reckon why he’s so unbelievably nasty to women he doesn’t like - “go to hell” and all that - he’s nearly divided us into good sex-positive liberal women; and Bad Old Dried-Up Harpies who want to stop everyone having all that super free liberated sexual expression. But to me there’s always something rather suspect about men who plead that position a little too much. They only want to know the Cool Girls, and the misogyny comes out at women who don’t do the requisite fawning.
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