Rather than begin a new thread, this seems to fit here best.
There's been a new interview with Pullman where he mentions Tolkien. Note, he does
not knock Tolkien, but his imitators!
Read these:
Guardian Article
Literary Review Article
And the Killer Quote:
Quote:
How much were you itching to invent alternative worlds before embarking on 'Northern Lights'?
I wasn't itching at all. It took me entirely by surprise. I always took a dim view of fantasy - still do in fact. Most of it is trash, but then most of everything is trash. 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.
The first book I think really did what fantasy can do, besides Paradise Lost, was a book published in 1920 called The Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. It's a very poorly written, clumsily constructed book which nevertheless has the force, the power, the intensity of genius. He uses fantasy to say something profound about morality - none of Tolkien's imitators do this.
Another thing about fantasy - 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. Nor was I itching to write about religion. I originally wanted to write a story about a girl who goes into a room where she shouldn't be and has to hide when someone comes in and by chance overhears something she's not supposed to hear. A little later I discovered she had a daemon, that was the point at which I realised I'd got hold of a story somehow that I could use - no, you don't use a story - that I could explore, and say something about Kleist's essay which I had come across fifteen years before. The religious theme evolved as part of what Lyra has to struggle against and give up.
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I have to say I agree with him. I don't like fantasy because most of it is flippin' dreadful. I like certain fantasy works - and when they are good, they are the best books it's possible to read. Pullman is right. Tolkien's imitators, writers who have attempted to follow in his tradition, have just not been up to scratch.
Pullman wrote something based on ideas of Milton and Blake; Gaiman uses forms of graphic novels and ancient fairy tales combined with modern horrors; Clarke utilises the form and tone of the 18th century novel; Rowling makes use of the traditional 'school story'. No Elves (Dyson would be pleased
). Few unconquerable Dark Lords. Ambiguity. Peril.