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Some years ago, a philosophy professor told us all a story about meeting a world famous philosopher (he did not name the felon). The two, caught up in a moment of high hijinks late at night, decided to roll toilet paper out the window of the men's room. They were interrupted by the arrival of the janitor, a straight sort of fellow who recognised the eminent men and sputtered at them that people had reported someone rolling toilet paper out the window of the men's room. In reply, the eminent philosopher, caught one would think red-handed, agreed with the janitor that the actions were untoward. "I know, it's terrible," my professor claimed the philosopher said, "will you help us? We are trying to roll it back in." Now there's a fly-on-the-wall story for Tevildo!
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Bethberry,
That is a great story!
I am wondering about something Davem said.
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It seems that it is in the first volume that he allows his muse free rein, & that is by far the most successful (& absorbing) of the trilogy. It is in the final volume where he seems to have been able to impose his philosophy on the work, & that is the one that most readers find least convincing or entertaining.
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I agree, but this brings up another issue. Despite the quote at the beginning of this thread, Pullman definitely spent more time complaining about Lewis than Tolkien. If you google "Pullman and Lewis", you get pages of intense argument with many Inklings backers going tooth and nail at Pullman. You don't see that same pattern if you google "Tolkien and Pullman". Pullman doesn't like Tolkien, but he is at least more "genteel" in his criticism.
In some ways, Pullman and Lewis can be accused of representing two sides of one coin... putting their personal philosophy ahead of the story itself. It is their similarity of method that makes them such natural "enemies", especially given that their views on religion are so different. I do like both authors and don't want to "bash" either of them (though I admittedly feel more comfortable with Lewis's argument than Pullman's).
Yet if there is some kind of continuum in place here, I see Pullman and Lewis on one end and Tolkien on the other. Lewis and Pullman insist on contemporary meaning -- there is no pure history or faery that does not carry a lesson. They must necessarily reduce or subordinate much of their world to that particular message. Tolkien, by contrast, is the one who can appreciate what is most "worthless" and "messy" and at the same time most glorious -- art that mirrors beauty and nature and the intricacies of the soul, with the lessons present but still secondary to the enormous complexities of life.
So who is actually more "realistic"--the writer who glories in the intricacies of a subcreated world, or the one whose empasis on a message (even if I agree with that message) necessarily simplifies what he sees and tells?