A dim view of fantasy ... Philip Pullman. Photograph: Sarah Lee
The August issue of Literary Review carries a fascinating interview with Philip Pullman. Talking to Claudia FitzHerbert, the Carnegie of Carnegies-winning author discusses an impressively wide range of subjects: it's exciting, for one, to learn that he's working on a follow-up to His Dark Materials. The Book of Dust will pick up Lyra's story two years on and also deal with some of the theological issues raised in the previous books.
"What do you say to critics who ask where is the good that is done by religion [in His Dark Materials]?" asks FitzHerbert, to which Pullman responds: "This is a big subject and I'm writing a big, big book in order to deal precisely with that question." He goes on to describe with great eloquence the importance he places on perspective when dealing with atheism.
Is there a long and distinguished list of atheists in literature? Discounting philosophers, perhaps not. Shelley, famously, was sent down from Oxford for his treatise The Necessity of Atheism. Other than Romanticism's most celebrated rebel, this list is not long. Voltaire is often represented as an atheist, though in fact his objections to religious institutions did not interfere with a basic belief in God.
The list obviously gets fatter the further into the 20th century one gets. But perhaps the aesthetic qualities associated with religious experience have ensured that many writers and poets have been, as Pullman describes William Blake, merely "pretty heterodox" in their beliefs.
Pullman is an atheist of the most appealing kind, but he is of course a compelling voice on a range of issues besides: education and "the recent hoo-ha about grammar schools"; the self-consciousness of the postmodern storyteller; poetry; Fabianism; and, naturally, The Golden Compass, the film of His Dark Materials which is coming out in the winter.
In the wake of the Harry Potter extravaganza, one remark Pullman makes in the interview is particularly telling: "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."
Many adults seem to feel ashamed to read fantasy (and sci-fi too) but have no qualms about getting stuck in to a seven-volume series for children involving wizards and dragons. Perhaps this is because, as Pullman says, so little has been done with fantasy as a genre.
He still takes a "dim view" of fantasy, in fact: "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."
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Comments
3 August 2007 12:58PM
Evangelical atheists. Why the hell can't they just shut up and not believe in God in the privacy of their own home? Why do they always have to come and try and convert the rest of us to their religious views?
3 August 2007 01:28PM
I think Pullman is right about adults reading HDM. I read it because at the time it was what my child would read. I very much doubt I'd have tried it if it had been just another adult book. But I know people who don't read Pullman because he is a "childen's" author.
3 August 2007 01:34PM
I don't know where the Guardian gets its geographical information from, but I'd like to point out I am NOT in Stockholm at the moment. And I can spell children correctly...
3 August 2007 01:35PM
The problem with someone like Pullman is that instead of talking about the quality of his writing, discussions of his work inevitably veer off into his views on religion, education, and the like. Why should his opinions on these matters have any more weight just because he writes fiction? It's beyond me to understand.
3 August 2007 01:41PM
"Voltaire is often represented as an atheist, though in fact his objections to religious institutions did not interfere with a basic belief in God."
This isn't exactly correct; Voltaire does offer quite a lot of criticisms of christian theology as well as church institutions. In common with figures like Jefferson, it might be best to call him a theist, but even then you have to recall that that was probably the only term available for a position critical of religion; few would have dared call themselves an atheist given that that term essentially existed as solely a form of abuse.
More generally, I think there are quite a few atheist writers you've omitted (not to mention those essentially indifferent to religion but not explicitly identified as atheist); George Bernard Shaw or EM Forster for example.
3 August 2007 02:24PM
@BillyMills "instead of talking about the quality of his writing, discussions of his work inevitably veer off into his views on religion, education, and the like. Why should his opinions on these matters have any more weight just because he writes fiction? It's beyond me to understand."
maybe because he is a phemonally successful and popular writer, who has written one of the best works of the last decade, in which his atheist ideas play a key part?
3 August 2007 02:26PM
Kharin, please don't try to impose beliefs on Voltaire, Jefferson, Franklin, et al. Far too many atheitst evangelists today can't seem to distinguish between criticism of religion and belief in God. The 18th century philosophes were highly critical of organized religion -- this does not mean they disbelieved in God. They considered themselves Deists or Unitarians. Voltaire, Jefferson and Franklin were in fact theists -- they detested the hypocrisies and tyrannies of the church. But they definitely believed in "Providence."
3 August 2007 04:04PM
"Kharin, please don't try to impose beliefs on Voltaire, Jefferson, Franklin, et al."
I'm slightly mystified as to this, given that I pointed out that they were probably best described as deists - I don't see anything wrong in pointing out that deist is not an uncomplicated term though (as an example, 'invert' is far from an uncomplicated term when compared to a modern alternative like 'gay'). But then, the minute the phrase 'atheist evangelicals' is used it's a pretty sure sign that any expectations of a reasoned viewpoint will be in vain.
3 August 2007 04:45PM
ChinofJim: "maybe because he is a phemonally successful and popular writer, who has written one of the best works of the last decade, in which his atheist ideas play a key part?"
Or maybe because it's a subject he keeps banging on about? Read the articles he puts his name to. His anti-Godsquad crusade isn't confined to his books.
3 August 2007 04:47PM
I stopped taking him seriously after he accepted a CBE from the Queen. Some atheist he turned out to be.
3 August 2007 10:01PM
lillerannen - I know, I'm nowhere near Telford either!
Why, is there always a sequel? Why, is there always a film?
One day, people will realise a trilogy should be made up of three. Not an added one that takes away the ending from the third. Around this time, people will also realise that too many great books have been ruined by films. I would like to be there when this happens, it will be a happy time.
4 August 2007 12:36AM
I know I've said this elsewhere, but I don't understand why Pullman's HDM were marketed as "crossover" books. I read them on that basis (I'm a devout atheist, so was drawn in by the publicity), but to me, they're clearly kids' books, albeit very well written ones.
I also was puzzled after reading them as to why they were touted as anti-religious - that aspect was less than obvious. If anything, the books seemed to espouse an alternative religion.
(Some of you may complain about being assigned to the wrong location, but I get no location at all on these blogs.... <--- see? Nowhere man!)
4 August 2007 08:11AM
Its God he doesn't believe in the existence of, not the bloody Queen! I don't understand the views of some people here - religious people are welcome to stand up and declaim their faith but apparently when atheists step up and express a view point that's a negative thing. I wasn't aware that Pullman was calling for religious believers to be put to death he was merely answering questions in interviews that no-one is required to read in response to books that no-one is required to read either. But apparently that's too much for some folk. Well well well.
4 August 2007 05:46PM
I just saw an advert @ the cinema 4 the film, its called somehting completely different from any of the books and looks like its barely based upon the books at all. If possible, that may be worse.
5 August 2007 12:55AM
Philip Pullman is a thin-lipped, cold-blooded, elitist and calculating fish who plays to the P.C. Zeitgeist.
His books are violent and needlessly so. He uses this brutality, including child murder and murderous children, as cheap grist to his mealy mouthing intellectual-mechanical writing mill.
Lot's of people subscribe to his souless, passionless writing, because they resemble him; In his books the heroes are hope puncturing, vile, ruthless and cruel. Perhaps he has invested some of himself into his books.
His "realism" is the realism of someone who slaps a child, just to teach them how cruel the world can be.
Moreover, Philip Pullman steals the fantasy fabric of other more honest books in order to weave his own fabric. This shows complete hypocracy. He uses magic disguised as science fiction and at the end of his books, his characters have to live without magic. Thatb is the lying paradox at the heart of what he writes.
Lyra's truth compass is a borrowed mythological reference I came across a while back, but Pullman's use of it shows how one sided his erudition is. He may be able to converse intelligibly about quantum mechanics, but he knows bugger all about the cognition and the philosophy that should inform his writing.
Pullman's writing is the emperor's new clothes and the more they praise him, the more they look like fashionable PC twerps. His work is ephemeral and should throw no shadow on anyones cave wall.
6 August 2007 03:28AM
I was willing to listen to some of the points made by Ishouldapologise, with regard to the violence in HDM, but the s/he wrote this: "but he knows bugger all about the cognition [...] that should inform his writing" and I realised that s/he has no idea what s/he's going on about.
The cognition that should inform his writing? What on earth does that mean?
6 August 2007 09:05AM
I think Ishouldapologise got lost on his way to The Daily Mail blogs.
6 August 2007 12:34PM
God bless the aetheists. I too am mystified why they ( or rather their ideas ) get such a mauling by people who actually, probably agree with them. You either believe in God or you don't so if you don't you have the same beliefs as the likes of Phillip Pullman and Dawkins. Or is this really an argument about people who are a bit obnoxious rather than actual beliefs.
After years of religious claptrap deciding what we are allowed to see, read, watch etc. I quite like it when some stroppy writer stands up to this even if I may not like the way they do it.
7 August 2007 09:35AM
ChinofJim: let me widen my original statement. I fail to understand why any artist, good or bad, should be consulted on social issues as if their being an artist gave their opinions any greater weight. Artists are, at best, experts in their art. Beyond that, they're just citizens like the rest of us.