I'm reading HDM again, and once again I'm finding it to be a fantastic read - it's definitely in my top ten books, if not top five. And in some ways it brings me back to the sense of excitement I once got from reading Tolkien for the first time; much of HDM is very upsetting and the story is intense.
Anyway, this brought me back to some more thoughts.
The similarities between Tolkien and Pullman are startling, not just in terms of their biographies - both losing a father at an early age, and both were brought up with a strong religious influence, in Pullman's case CofE. But other things are similar - both have an intense love of simple
story and narrative, and its story that motivated Pullman to write HDM and story that tempted Tolkien out of naval-gazing personal language development and into writing proper books.
Both men seem to have an anarchic streak too. There's an obvious shared love for humour, and the sense of the silly and naughty. They also seem to want to kick against 'the man' in some way - Pullman with his comments on 'worthy' state education and Tolkien's curmudgeonly grumblings about The State. Pullman's interviews are filled with controversial statements which he later contradicts by saying something which seems to be exactly the opposite. And didn't Tolkien do just that?! His grandiose and much mis-quoted statements about 'mythologies for England' and
that comment about his work being 'Catholic' which he then went on to contradict with his statements on allegory. Of course, Tolkien wasn't averse to knocking other writers himself; his more polite times probably stopped him from being so nasty. Both writers are/were stirrers of the proverbial. Perhaps Pullman has his eye on flaming debates when he's long gone and is laughing away at us from the outer reaches of the Universe.
So where's the essential difference between them? I think it lies in that Pullman admires Reason and Tolkien admires Romance. Pullman states he was deeply influenced by Blake and Milton - and interestingly that he was amused that Milton ended up making Satan look quite cool, actually (my words, not his - it was something I said at Uni that made the tutor laugh, but is similar to what Pullman thinks!). The church he depicts with hate in HDM is the church had the Reformation failed - dogmatic and untempered by Reason. I'm noting that he never once mentions Jesus and is not actually a classical Atheist, more a curious lapsed Liberal Protestant (like me). Tolkien however, certainly viewed from the perspective of Pullman, harks back to the pre-Reformation. However, viewed in isolation, I always find Tolkien to be a Modernist, not a Medievalist - bleak and moribund and forever focussing on the need for people to make an effort to make the world a decent place (and stop relying on Elves).
Infantile? Spun candy? Reading Pullman again, and looking at what he pours into HDM I have two thoughts.
Firstly, he's being unfair when he criticises Tolkien for having Elves and Hobbits and 'unreal' creatures. Erm, has he not got talking bears? Witches? (the witches have a fascinating feminist aspect but I'm not going into that) Cliff Ghasts? Mad creatures are a
feature of fantasy. I think this is another example of that familiar big mouth that Pullman and Tolkien shared.
Secondly, I simply think that Pullman is missing the big ideas contained in Tolkien's work about the environment, war and mortality. Strangely, for a writer who poured so much detail into his work, Tolkien deals with his issues in a poetic way, without going into the detail. He uses a big brush. Pullman on the other hand does not shy away from things which are actually quite brave things to put into a kids' book - complicated astrophysics, complicated adult relationships, complicated political machinations. He uses detail.
Anyway, I'll no doubt think of more when I've finished reading. However, the fact remains that both writers aren't/weren't averse to a bit of stirring, and Pullman's comments on Tolkien probably ought to be taken in that light.