'Spun Candy' anyone?

[davem]

So both wish to kill their 'father'? But if we're getting all Oedipal here, what is the 'mother' they seek to possess?

[Macalaure]

This is purely speculative, so feel free to disagree with me or to ignore my post altogether.


I would say that the 'mother' is their own writing. Of course this means in a way it's not their mother but their children, so the analogy doesn't exactly work with this approach.
Following Bethberry, their 'fathers' had a major influence on their own work. Now they might fear that others notice this influence and point it out, maybe even to the extend to say they copied parts. To themselves, this may seem as if their work is degraded in others' eyes and this they cannot and do not suffer. To overcome it by pointing out and explaining why they and their work weren't influenced like this is not enough, as it may be objected with good arguments. That is why they have to attack their fathers themselves with opinions and tell everybody just how much they dislike them. Now, in their eyes, they have their creation back for their own and unspoiled.

Though, I don't think I can go this far with Tolkien and Shakespeare, as Tolkien never publicly voiced his dislikes.


About the question "Why does Pullman criticise Tolkien the way he does" one more thing came to my mind. Especially the "real wrestle with real things" has me thinking and reminded me of the "Is Fantasy a dream or an escape?"-thread. Pullman would certainly have answered: none of the two, fantasy has only so much value as it is directly connected with reality. So my question is: Is Pullman a jailer?

[davem]

In this context I'm reminded of Tolkien's words in the Essay he wrote on Smith:

BUT Faery is not religious. It is fairly evident that it is not Heaven or Paradise. Certainly its inhabitants, Elves, are not angels or emlssares of God (direct). The tale does not deal with religion itself. The Elves are not busy with a plan to reawake religious devotion in Wootton. The Cooking allegory would not be suitable to any such import. Faery represents at its weakest a breaking out (at least in mind) from the iron ring of the familiar, stilI more from the adamantine ring of belief that it is known, possessed, controlled, and so (ultimately) all that is worth being considered - a constant awareness of a world beyond these rings. More strongly it represents love: that is, a love and respect for all things, 'inanimate' and 'animate', an unposessing love of them as 'other'. This 'love' will produce both ruth and delight. Things seen in its light will be respected, and they will also appear delightful, beautiful, wonderful - even glorious.

Pullman, it seems, is aware of a world beyond these rings, but considers it to be dangerous & wishes to instill a fear of it in his readers & so attacks any work which presents it in a positive light.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I'm enjoying the various ideas and contributions which this topic produces! It's been awhile since I read HDM, and I don't own it, so I can't go back to check up my memories. As I recall, I enjoyed it, especially the first two books, very much, (though I did not agree with the author's basic premise concerning faith) but found its ending less satisfying. It was a let-down for me; Pullman's view of the end of human life was without hope, since it led to nothing, more or less.

Lewis' Narnia series ends clearly allegorically, and I don't enjoy rereading it as much as I did years ago, but there is a fascination in "further up and further in"! "The inside is larger than the outside" is a hopeful view of future beauty.

Tolkien manages to give each character in his story a different ending - no stereotyped sugary closing for anyone! Aragorn's was a fairy-tale ending - he got the kingdom and the bride, to keep at least until we read Appendix A. Frodo got the "escape from this world" ending, with the hope of healing. Sam got the "back home" ending, coming full circle to stay where he began, though changed. We could go on with each character, with each one finding what is appropriate for him/her. How could "spun candy" have so much differentiation?! There is depth there - and hope.

There is also so much wisdom in LotR, whether the common sense of Sam's Gaffer or Gandalf's speeches (think of his answer to "I wish it hadn't happened in my time" or the closing words "I will not say, do not weep", to mention only two). Those are not sermons, trying to convert anyone, but they give us readers something to ponder and to take with us that enriches our lives.

Of all three books/series, which would I take to the proverbial desert island? My presence here answers that question, I'm sure.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

So both wish to kill their 'father'? But if we're getting all Oedipal here, what is the 'mother' they seek to possess?

One need not 'apply' the family romance to the idea that great minds read more closely into things, so closely, that they produce new, original readings for us. There are many other metaphors one may use.

Besides, it is interesting to note that both Tolkien and Pullman lost their fathers early in life.

What a different world academe was before the "publish or perish" madness! And before our modern glut of journalism and marketing/advertising.

It might really be interesting to know what Tolkien's teaching style and methods were and contrast them to Pullman's.

Esty, that's a lovely witness to your love of Tolkien!

[davem]

I wonder if the comment in OFS is actually 'criticsm' of Shakespeare as a playwright. Tolkien seems only to be criticising Shakespeare's use of fantasy in Macbeth (& also by extension in A Midsummer Night's Dream & The Tempest, I suppose.) Certainly he never goes as far as Pullman in calling his 'father's' work 'infantile'. Tolkien at least offers a valid reason for his criticism, & doesn't resort to mere insult. He states he disliked reading Shakespeare, but also states that he was moved by Ophelia's singing. In short his problem seems to be with the reading of Shakespeare as opposed to watching it, & when Shakespeare puts fantasy on stage. His statement that Shakespeare should have written Macbeth as a story implies that he respected his narrative talents but felt that in that case they were misapplied.

Anyway...

Pullman's statement that LotR is 'infantile' clearly sets out Pullman's position - fantasy is inherently 'childish' & it is the 'duty' of an author to help his child readers 'grow up' & put away childish things. So Pullman uses fantasy to undermine fantasy (in his own words). The end of HDM is the end of fantasy. The worlds seperate forever, & the children proceed to get on with the 'grown-up' task of 'building the Republic of Heaven'. Now, being that 'Heaven' is essentially a metaphysical concept, its difficult to work out what this statement actually means, or how it could be achieved.

What Pullman seem s to mean is that everyone should work to make the world a better place, where everyone is nice to each other all the time & they all live happily ever after. And this is a 'grown up' novel according to the Literati (among whom Pullman presumably numbers himself!

Of course, this 'Republic of Heaven' is anything but 'Heaven' in the sense we understand the term. It is 'Heaven' without any spiritual aspect at all - yet Heaven is spiritual if it is anything. We have to conclude that the whole 'building a Republic of Heaven' idea is a meaningless phrase. To have read a thousand page novel & end up with a piece of nonsense like that as the author's final word is enough to make you throw the book across the room & demand those lost hours of your life back. To compare the words 'build the Reublic of Heaven' with Sam's final words: 'Well, I'm back' is to experience a real shock - the power of Tolkien's simple statement (what Pullman would describe, one assumes, as 'infantile’ with Pullman's bland & meaningless rhetoric, is almost overwhelming & shows that if either work is 'infantile' it is certainly not Tolkien's.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

I wonder if the comment in OFS is actually 'criticsm' of Shakespeare as a playwright.

Well, I suppose we could quibble over what you mean by criticism, but I had used the words 'objection' and 'correction' and suggested that the main point of Tolkien's comments derived from the question of the nature of fairy. Clearly the quotations available show that Tolkien thought Shakespeare worth 'doing'. The signficant issue I think is that Shakespeare provided Tolkien with a valuable 'place' from which to consider fairy. Tolkien's thoughts about fairy are, to my mind, substantial and significant and clearly Shakespeare played some part in helping him think about how to represent the land--or at least in part how to explain the lay of said land to his audience. It was, then, a very important and complex relationship, one which allowed Tolkien to develop his thought.

Originally Posted by davem

Anyway...

Pullman's statement that LotR is 'infantile' clearly sets out Pullman's position - fantasy is inherently 'childish' & it is the 'duty' of an author to help his child readers 'grow up' & put away childish things. So Pullman uses fantasy to undermine fantasy (in his own words). The end of HDM is the end of fantasy. The worlds seperate forever, & the children proceed to get on with the 'grown-up' task of 'building the Republic of Heaven'. Now, being that 'Heaven' is essentially a metaphysical concept, its difficult to work out what this statement actually means, or how it could be achieved.

What Pullman seem s to mean is that everyone should work to make the world a better place, where everyone is nice to each other all the time & they all live happily ever after. And this is a 'grown up' novel according to the Literati (among whom Pullman presumably numbers himself!

Of course, this 'Republic of Heaven' is anything but 'Heaven' in the sense we understand the term. It is 'Heaven' without any spiritual aspect at all - yet Heaven is spiritual if it is anything. We have to conclude that the whole 'building a Republic of Heaven' idea is a meaningless phrase. To have read a thousand page novel & end up with a piece of nonsense like that as the author's final word is enough to make you throw the book across the room & demand those lost hours of your life back. To compare the words 'build the Reublic of Heaven' with Sam's final words: 'Well, I'm back' is to experience a real shock - the power of Tolkien's simple statement (what Pullman would describe, one assumes, as 'infantile’ with Pullman's bland & meaningless rhetoric, is almost overwhelming & shows that if either work is 'infantile' it is certainly not Tolkien's.

With Tolkien, we have a very fine essay in OFT and the "minor works" to help us discuss his thoughts on fantasy. What we have of Pullman in this thread is nothing like that and your comments seem to be moving back and forth between reported statements and HDM for analysis. What I think would really give us something substantial to compare would be Pullman's actual lectures themselves rather than a few choice phrases reported by a journalist.

For instance, the first post for this thread starts with:

Originally Posted by first post

In an essay in the New Yorker Pullman states

Quote:
At one point, Pullman and I stopped by the Eagle and Child, an Oxford pub where Lewis and Tolkien used to meet regularly with a group of literary friends. (They called themselves the Inklings.) A framed photograph of Lewis’s jowly face smiled down on us as we talked. In person, Pullman isn’t quite as choleric as he sometimes comes across in his newspaper essays. When challenged, he listens carefully and considerately, and occasionally tempers his ire. “The ‘Narnia’ books are a real wrestle with real things,” he conceded. As much as he dislikes the answers Lewis arrives at, he said that he respects “the struggle that he’s undergoing as he searches for the answers. There’s hope for Lewis. Lewis could be redeemed.” Not Tolkien, however: the “Rings” series, he declared, is “just fancy spun candy. There’s no substance to it.”

Yet Pullman here is himself quoted, and the actual passage itself is written by the journalist Laura Miller. It is Miller who makes those statements, not Pullman himself directly. We are certainly right to take umbrage with such characterisations, yet it seems to me that 'sound bites' aren't always the full story. I would much rather prefer to read Pullman's thought in its entirety, in his own words and then to take issue with him.

Laura Miller's article is fascinating for it seems to me to suggest subtly connections between Pullman and Tolkien and those connections stand in contrast to Pullman's antipathy to Tolkien and Lewis. Pullman chooses to buy organic bacon? Sounds like something Tolkien would do today. Telling stories and jokes? Sounds to me a fair bit like our Tollers. She's up to something here--not a bad thing by any means--but what she is up to isn't necessarily what Pullman himself may be up to.

The passage which davem quotes from Tolkien's essay on Smith has a fascinating comment, which I don't think we've really explored much:

Originally Posted by Tolkien

BUT Faery is not religious. It is fairly evident that it is not Heaven or Paradise. Certainly its inhabitants, Elves, are not angels or emlssares of God (direct). The tale does not deal with religion itself.

Would Pullman say this, that fairy (or fantasy) is not religious? Or his his 'story' not the same thing as 'fairy'? We need to examine these kinds of differences between their thought, I think.

So, I suggest that, before we really get our knickers all in a knot, we try to track down Pullman's full statements and then give him due process.

[MatthewM]

Thanks for the Letter quotes Beth, but I didn't understand anything Tolkien was saying on Shakesphere, as he usually speaks in riddles. I couldn't tell if it was for or against. Maybe it was neither? Ah well, it's not what the topic is about anyway.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by MatthewM

Thanks for the Letter quotes Beth, but I didn't understand anything Tolkien was saying on Shakesphere, as he usually speaks in riddles. I couldn't tell if it was for or against. Maybe it was neither? Ah well, it's not what the topic is about anyway.

It seems to me that Tolkien feels the same way as I do about studying drama texts from books, that it just isn't satisfying, and it does the plays an injustice. I always found myself frustrated reading plays out of books, I wanted to see the plays and hear them. I had to ask myself if people in Shakespeare's day would have sat in earnest groups reading his plays from the page. No, they would have been in rough, bawdy, crowded theatres watching the action, listening to these lines being said aloud, and probably shouting and heckling and stuff too.

I can't read Marlowe's Doctor Faustus without constantly stopping to visualise it, and wish there was a modern film of it to watch with all the mad stuff made real on the screen. I've seen the Revenger's Tragedy performed where they handed out plastic capes for the front row audience to wear as the actors flung around fake blood and raw meat. That's what Drama's about, noise and action, and singing and hearing someone read the poetry aloud. I think that is exactly what Tolkien's getting at.

Anyway, back on topic...

Tolkien's work exists within its own world, its own universe. Arda is a different place. Pullman's world however, exists alongside our own world. I wonder just how much Pullman hates the notion of an entire other world? He mentions Narnia which is also accessible from our own world. I wonder if he is reacting against this detachment from the Real World that Arda has? And I wonder if he has read (or even is aware of) Tolkien's experimental fictions such as The Lost Road which tried to link Arda to the Real World? I suspect he never will know about this as he has no desire to explore Tolkien's work further.

What he is missing with the accusation of 'spun sugar' aimed at Tolkien's writing is something important in literature, subtlety. Tolkien's work has a grip on and deals with some of the biggest issues of the modern age, such as environmental disaster, totalitarianism, war and the enslavement of mankind to the 'machine' of society. He also has incredible characters such as Gollum who make us stop and think about who and what is 'good' and 'evil'. In Tolkien's work, this is all put across with subtlety. His style is poetic, and by that I mean his work works on many levels like a poem does; there is the surface 'plot' but underneath are the layers - language revealing history, events having several interpretations, dialogue revealing character rather than internal monologue doing so (the usual modern form).

This may reveal a lot about the two writers' reading preferences - certainly Tolkien was fond of old epics, usually in the poetic form, where a few lines can reveal a whole host of details and allow for many speculations.

What I found in HDM was a wonderful work, which itself had a lot of potential for speculation and mystery, but which fell down towards the end with some very shaky storytelling; it was clear that the 'point' was more important than the 'story' towards the end as so little of it rang true. I do suspect that he began in much the same way that Tolkien did, just writing, and the 'point' only became apparent at a later stage, at too late a stage to correctly tie it in with the plot. In any case, he clearly could not let go of the 'magic' himself as he later produced a short story about Lyra and a 'Book Of Dust' may be written; holding true to his own 'point', surely Lyra should just now 'grow up'? So he's not that different to Tolkien after all.

[Encaitare]

Whilst reading Letters yesterday, I came across some interesting excerpts that go with this topic pretty well. The particular letter is #183, "a comment, apparently written for Tolkien's own satisfaction and not sent or shown to anyone else, on 'At the End of the Quest, Victory', a review of The Return of the King by W. H. Auden in the New York Times Book Review, 22 January 1956.

Originally Posted by JRRT

I believe that it is precisely because I did not try, and have never thought of trying to 'objectify' my personal experience of life that the account of the Quest of the Ring is successful in giving pleasure to Auden (and others). Probably it is also the reason, in many cases, why it has failed to please some readers and critics. The story is not about JRRT at all, and is at no point an attempt to allegorize his experience of life -- for that is what the objectifying of his subjective experience in a tale must mean, if anything.

[...]

Men do go, and have in history gone on journeys and quests, without any intention of acting out allegories of life.

[Bêthberry]

I haven't read these links yet, but here are Pullman's lectures in full.

Miss Goddard's Grave


Isis Speech


Guardian article on teaching


The Dark Side of Narnia