[The Saucepan Man]

I think that there is a misunderstanding here over Pullman's approach, and that is what is leading to the assumption that his opinions are contradictory.

I have not re-read all of the materials linked to here, so I may be wrong, but the sense I get is not that Pullman "requires" a story to have a message, in the sense of preaching a particular doctrine, philosophy or worldview, but that it be "weighty" in the sense of providing material for thought.

Certainly, most of the materials here suggest that he subscribes to the Tolkienian view of the importance of a piece of fiction as entertainment, and I would agree with Lalwendë's assessment in this regard above. But it seems to me that Pullman's definition of an entertaining story is one which is (or, perhaps more correctly, which he finds to be) thought-provoking. That is not to say that he regards it necessary to pull a story apart in order to find the depth within it, the analytical approach which Tolkien disdains above. Rather, he considers that a story which provides material for thought (even if such thought occurs at a less than conscious level) is, essentially, a more entertaining one than one which does not. (The assessment of whether a particular story provides such material is, of course, a subjective one, although I am sure that we could all agree on examples of those stories which do not.)

His comments on LotR concerning its "triviality" and "spun candy" nature indicate quite clearly that he does not find such depth in LotR. This links in with the thread on Psychological Depth, which I started some time ago on the basis of a quote from Pullman. He finds that the characters lack psychological depth, that there is no "weight" to them and he cannot therefore regard them or their story as providing anything useful to say on the realities of life (as he perceives them). For him, LotR is merely the account of a series of events linked up with nice descriptions of the landscape. It has no depth. There is nothing there which "grabs" him from an intellectual or (I presume) emotinal point of view.

If I am right in my assessment of his approach, I rather agree with Pullman on many points here. I would agree that, from my perspective, a story is likely to be more entertaining if it has depth to it and provides material for thought. I would aso agree that, to an extent, many of the principal characters of LotR lack psychological depth. Where I would disagree with him is that it follows from this that LotR does not provide material for thought or, indeed, that there is no such material within it. That said, and as I have stated earlier, different people have different tastes and, if LotR does not "grab" him intellectually and emotionally in the same way that it grabs others, then no one can force him to like it.

And I would still maintain that, even though not all of Pullman's comments that we have been discussing here derive from "baiting" by journalists, LotR and (to a lesser degree) the Narnia books remain the principle peaks in the landscape within which he works and, professionally (as a writer), he is obliged to grapple with them, both within his own mind, and also publicly when discussing his works and their place within the fantasy genre.