‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Bêthberry]

Thank-you, Child, for posting that other Christian witness to Pullman's trilogy. I was indeed hoping to suggest that many interpretations and experiences are possible and, of course, all equally valid for the reader.

I am also heartened by your statement that you do feel Pullman's world does incorporate enchantment. Indeed, I was very uneasy with davem's initial statement that Pullman's books cannot be fantasy as Tolkien defines it because they are atheistic. That, to my mind, defines literary genres by ideology, something which leads inherently I think to a grave limitation of what can legitimately be called literature.

What strikes me most strongly is the way Pullman, even in a 'fantasy' story, cannot let go of his athiesm. He's basically undermining fairy story, by deliberately denying any possibility of eucatastrophe. He eventually cuts this world off from magic, & from any possibility of 'liberation'. So, he strands us, here, in this one world, this one life. And all we have to look forward to is cessation.

Tolkien seems to be offering the exact opposite.

So, can we class both writer's works as 'fantasy' - HDM is not 'fantasy' in the sense in which Tolkien uses the term, because Eucatastrophe is completely absent. Indeed, Pullman seems to have created a story in which eucatastrophe is impossible.

I think we need to be very careful using words such as eucatastrophe and magic. For instance, Tolkien gives very specific and special meaning to his use of 'magic', suggesting that it is not a slight of hand or optical illusion which defies the physical properties of ths earth but rather a particular kind of artistic unity or vision where intention and completion are united. It is art. "the magic, or rather art," Tolkien says in OFs.

In this sense, Pullman's His Dark Materials are full of artistic wonder and breathtaking feats of writing for me. His concept of dæmon pulls at my heart and mind every time I read the books, particularly in the uniqueness of each person's dæmon and in the special relationship with an animal which is at its heart--something Tolkien also discusses in OFS. The gyptians and their boats and the marshlands of the lower Thames and Lyra's escape are quintessentially elements of fantasy for me, as is the description of her childhood at Jordan. The bears? The confederacy of the witches? The Angels? Mary Malone? Mary's life speaks so poignantly to me of hope and the great possibilities of love which human beings are capable of. And I could go on naming so many other elements of His Dark Materials which strike me as high points of articistic creation, the very spell of which Tolkien speaks.

However, I suspect that for you Tolkien's definition of magic and eucatastrophe are inescapably religious. That you view them in this manner is, of course, your right as a reader. ( Nor are these two facets of fantasy the sole elements which Tolkien discusses.) However, I would like to focus on eucatastrophe alone for now and respectfully point out that Tolkien's definition is not primarily religious. Here I will go back to my earlier post and explain it more lucidly I hope.

Tolkien introduces the word "eucatastrophe" in the section entitled "Recovery, Escape, Consolation." (He says that eucatastrophe is the highest function of fantasy, but not the sole one. ) And he also defines it as the unexpected consolation of the Happy Ending. He uses the words Joy and Evangelium but the main focus of his argument lies in examining the effect of this unexpected turn of events.

It is only in the Epilogue that Tolkien brings in what for him was "the greatest and most complete conceivable eucastrophe," the story of Christ. He does not define the Christian witness or truth as the function of fantasy. He argues it the other way around. He establishes first his definition and understanding of how fantasy satisfies human desires, and in particular this unexpected consolation, and then he offers what for him is the most complete form of the artistic effect. I would venture to say that Tolkien remained a Christian, a Catholic, because for him its very heart reflected the fundamental truth of art for him.
A letter which Tolkien never sent seems to me to confirm this idea that for him fantasy was an artistic or literary effect primarily (and that it could be used for ill or good).

I refer to the draft of Letter 153, to Peter Hastings. Hastings, a Catholic, had apparently written to Tolkien to question metaphysical matters in LotR. Tolkien several times observes that Hastings takes Tolkien too seriously , and, indeed, Carpenter provides a note which explains why Tolkien never sent the draft: "It seemed to be taking myself too seriously." I offer two passages from the letter to suggest Tolkien's desire that his writing be viewed as art.

I am taking myself even more seriously than you did, and making a great song and oration about a good tale, which admittedly owes its similitude to mere craft.

and

The tale is after all in the ultimate analysis a tale, a piece of literature, intended to have a literary effect, and not realy history.

It is here, I would suggest, that we can find explanation why people of so many different persuasions and faiths can find such great enjoyment in Tolkien. A truth of art, which for him his faith also mirrored, but an aesthetic experience first and foremost.

I write in haste and am called away. My apologies for the many infelicities of expression.

[davem]

Of course Pullman 'enchants' - the whole of the story is enchanting, magical, open to possibilies uncounted. Right till the end, & then Pullman snatches it all away, closes the doors to the other worlds forever, & even seperates the two lovers forever. Its an incredibly cruel ending - not just for Lyra & Will but for us all, especially for child readers, because it denies the possibility of Magic breaking in ever again - unless something goes 'wrong'. If things go 'right', all the worlds will remain seperate forever. The Magic & wonder you feel when reading the book is taken from you at the end. Because for Pullman that 'magic' & enchantment are 'childish', & things which must be grown out of. They are 'childish things' which must be put aside.

My discomfort with Pullman is not what he gives us throughout the story, but with the fact that having given it to us, let it become meaningful & uplifting, he then snatches it away, & when we grieve for it, he tells us, 'Well, sorry, but that's only for children, & you have to grow up now & leave it all behind'. What message do the two writers offer us - Tolkien tells us that the magic, the possibility of enchantment, is always there - 'Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate', & that like Smith, we too may find our way into Faerie. Pullman tells us not to be so silly & grow up.

Essentially, Pullman is like Nokes - the Fairy Queen is pretty, & all very nice for children, but no sensible grown-up will believe in her, or take the idea of Faerie seriously - and any children who insist on holding on to that belief must be shown how dangerously unrealistic it is, & be persuaded to give it all up, & come & live in the real world with the grown-ups who know better.

I heard Pullman on a radio interview back when The Amber Spyglass came out. He said that he was using fantasy to undermine fantasy, & wished he could write 'serious' fiction.

I don't doubt that: ''this young Christian woman feels that a reading of HDM "allowed her to grow as a person and closer to God." but is that what Pullman wants? - the growing closer to God part, I mean? Nothing in the book makes me feel that. The message running throughout the story seems to be that authority is simply wrong- especially supernatural authority, & must be broken free of. He seems to be the same as the scientists who separate the children from their daemons. He wants ultimatley to remove the possibility of real magic from his child readers, where Tolkien wants to give it to them & to all of us.

Pullman seems to see all magic, enchantment, & faith as dangerous & corrupting, as something we must be 'saved' from. We must be awakened from the mad 'dreme' & grow up into sensible adults. The young woman Child mentions, is, it seems to me, a classic example od what this thread is about - she's finding something in Pullman's work that he didn't put there, something in fact which is the opposite of his intention.

[Bêthberry]

I have time now for only the briefest of replies. I would myself be very interested in reading that inverview with Pullman, davem. And as for the girl's reading of Pullman, I would not hesitate to accept her reading experience, as I have said here about readings of Tolkien. We can listen to statements of an author's intention but when all is said and done a book, like a child, must make sense and meaning without parental control. As, in fact, your gloss on Pullman reflects your feeling that he betrays fantasy. That is an interpretation, your interpretation, but it is not the only interpretation.

I would, however, ask you to consider some other aspects of fantasy which Tolkien discusses because I think it is an aspect that Pullman draws upon in the trilogy. Tolkien says that faerier never really ends, the story goes on. Look at the last line of LOTR, Sam returning to the everyday world of The Shire, "Well, I'm back." The Amber Spyglass ends with Lyra telling her daemon they must build "The Reublic of Heaven." This is not a denial of fantasy, but a suggestion that the responsibility for continuing the vision it offers us lies with us, a challenge to see this world newly under what we have learnt from faerie. Pullman's trilogy goes on as much as Tolkien's does.

As for your statement of alleged cruelty thatf the lovers are separated, I think not. I would point to Eowyn's first love for Aragorn and Tolkien's recognition that not all first loves are like the mythic love of Aragorn and Arwen. In this "shipwreck of life"--to use Tolkien's phrase--there are many different kinds of love and not all need lead to domesticity and plighting of eternal troth. There is narrative wholeness and profound respect for the characters, for fantasy and for human existence. It is, for me, hopeful.

Writers are a bothersome lot oftentimes. Give them a genre or form and they will immediately begin to see ways to expand upon it, redefine it, to extend it, to reimagine it. That's what Tolkien did with the old northern narratives, to give them form and meaning for the Seventh Age. And that is what Pullman is doing. Faerie, the perilous realm, is endless. Some of us take strength from it, are invigorated by it, and, like Sam and Rosie, use that strength to rebuild this world. Others, like Frodo, find it leads elsewhere. No path is necessarily better or worse and no one path suffices for us all.

I must bid you all adieu. I will be away from this thread for some days now.