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Originally Posted by Roa_Aoife
Perhaps Pullman is aware of the real nature and depth of Tolkien's work, but because it isn't used to answer a question, he doesn't want people to think of it as good fantasy, but as "spun candy" so that his own style will look better by comparison. After all, if Tolkien is just a candy fantasy, why would Pullman care?
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It seems clear that Pullman has thought about Tolkien's work & feels it important to be able to define the differences between his own & Tolkien's work. I'm not sure that he has actually understood Tolkien's approach. For Pullman, it seems, for literature to be important it must serve some kind of didactic purpose. His dismissal of Tolkien seems to be down to the fact that Tolkien is not 'preaching' any kind of message. Yet this is odd in itself as part of his attack seems to be that in Tolkien's world there is a deity who defines Good & Evil & that the struggle the characters have is 'only' in finding the inner strength to do Good & not succumb to Evil. So, Tolkien's work is trivial because it has no message, no lesson to teach its readers, & at the same time it is 'wrong' because it has a clear moral structure.
It seems that for Pullman, as for all writers of fantasy, Tolkien is
there . You have to respond to Tolkien in some way because you can't ignore him. What Pullman cannot do is pretend Tolkien doesn't exist. Perhaps that's why Pullman seeks to play down the fantastic elements of his own work & align himself with writers of 'serious' literature.
It seems that Pullman is trying to escape being classed with Tolkien & Lewis because he doesn't want to be associated with their (Christian) worldview. Yet he has written a novel in which God & the Church play a central role. Perhaps another interesting question, along the lines of 'Why does Pullman not simply ignore Tolkien & Lewis if he has no time for them?' would be 'Why does he not simply ignore God if he has no time for Him?'. I suspect the answer is that, whatever his personal feelings about Tolkien & about God, neither can be ignored, & some acknowledgement of, & response to, them is necessary.