Far From Narnia

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051226fa_fact

The essay on Phillip Pullman in the current issue of the New Yorker is long but a good read. Pullman is the author of a best selling (in England) trilogy for children called 'The Dark Materials'. He is avowedly secular, and in fact views himself as in a struggle with 'theocracy'. A few paragraphs stood out from the essay and I quote them here. (Miss Goddard is his invention - an icon of his fictional School of Morals, which itself represents the struggle of rational secularism, of the enlightenment, against theocracy.)


In his speech, Pullman contended that the literary School of Morals is inherently ambiguous, dynamic, and democratic: a “conversation.” Opposed to this ideal is “theocracy,” which he defined as encompassing everything from Khomeini’s Iran to explicitly atheistic states such as Stalin’s Soviet Union. He listed some characteristics of such states—among them, “a scripture whose word is inerrant,” a priesthood whose authority “tends to concentrate in the hands of elderly men,” and “a secret police force with the powers of an Inquisition.” Theocracies, he said, demonstrate “the tendency of human beings to gather power to themselves in the name of something that may not be questioned.”

This impulse toward theocracy, he announced at the end of his speech, “will defeat the School of Morals in the end.” He sounded oddly cheerful making this prediction; in his books, Pullman enjoys striking a tone of melancholy resolve. He continued, “But that doesn’t mean we should give up and surrender. . . . I think we should act as if. I think we should read books, and tell children stories, and take them to the theatre, and learn poems, and play music, as if it would make a difference. . . . We should act as if the universe were listening to us and responding. We should act as if life were going to win. . . . That’s what I think they do, in the School of Morals. And Miss Goddard’s portrait hangs on the classroom wall.”


These thoughts echo the theme of "Reading Lolita in Tehran", that no matter how dark it gets, no matter how triumphant the theocrats become in their quest for power, in their quest to crush rationalism, we can, we must struggle to keep the spirit of the enlightenment alive. In our living rooms, on our stupid message boards, in our conversations with friends and acquaintances, it is our lonely voices that dare to speak rational truth to the crushing onslaught of irrational idiocy that must be heard.

Pullman loves Oxford, but he’s far from donnish. His books have been likened to those of J. R. R. Tolkien, another alumnus, but he scoffs at the notion of any resemblance. “ ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is fundamentally an infantile work,” he said. “Tolkien is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other. He’s interested in maps and plans and languages and codes.” When it comes to “The Chronicles of Narnia,” by C. S. Lewis, Pullman’s antipathy is even more pronounced. Although he likes Lewis’s criticism and quotes it surprisingly often, he considers the fantasy series “morally loathsome.”

When I want to read a kiddy book about "the way grownup, adult human beings interact"--I'll look Pullman up!

LOTR is fundamentally an infantile work (much as I liked it) and the Narnia stuff is morally loathsome (not to mention tedious)

But I don't find LOTR to be "infantile." Of course, that's my opinion. Some people have opinions, others just KNOW! Guess I'm just lacking in Faith. Or doubting I am Infallible.

There is nothing there except the story itself. No great issues are being dealt with, there is nothing except the inevitable triumph of good over evil. At least Narnia attempts to be more than the story it tells.

By the way infantile doesn't mean not fun to read. I loved LOTR and I've read all the Harry Potter books: but I am not under the delusion that either of them have improved my understanding of the world.

Tom Shippey believes that Tolkien's work is worthy literature and supplies quite a bit of evidence.

Please supply examples of literature dealing with "great issues."

see the title. Pullman is the anti-narnia. I also loved LOTR (at least parts of it, whole sections are unreadable) but indeed there is nothing there - it is infantile. I never managed to get through even the first Narnia book although my two younger sisters were enthralled by it.

The point about Narnia is that there is indeed a deliberate message (unlike LOTR) and it is not a particularly good one.

As for Pullman not being a good read for kids - the Brits beg to differ, it seems that his kids books are in fact quite popular.

Personally I think that it's good for children to get a wide exposure to all kinds of books -- even the ones which have messages which adults find controversial (Harry Potter, "Goosebumps", Discworld, Narnia, etc.) At the very least this gives kids a broad foundation for when they start thinking about these kinds of issues, as they get older. (Some of them might not. But you never know what might happen later on.)

It wasn't until I was in college that I realized a major difference between LOTR and Narnia was that Frodo actually failed. (This was thanks to an English lit prof who asked me to imagine how the books might have turned out if the authors had been switched.) I also read the "Wonderland" books, and it also took me years to see that the "what is the moral of it" exchange is spoofing what was then the convention in children's lit -- that it had to have a deliberate message spelled out for the readers. Heavyhanded moralizing is generally mocked these days, but after working my way through some Victorian-era children's literature -- it sure became evident that there have been some major changes out there.

p.s. arguably, Tolkien's focus on the history and background of his imaginary places (the "maps" and "languages" Pullman was referring to, presumably) actually make his work an interesting way to look at the social and political response of cultures to dramatic change. This is something which a lot of children's fantasy doesn't really cover (more focused on individual transformations?). Kids who are more interested in social studies (as I was) may like Middle Earth for this reason, even if they don't get the experience and vocabulary to explain why, until they are young adults. How infantile/juvenile one thinks something is can depend on how one approaches it. People who are looking for dramatic writing or adventurous yarns may be disappointed by the heavy appendices at the end of "Return of the King". Just as readers hoping that Ursula K. LeGuin's "Always Coming Home" was like her Earthsea series might be perplexed by all the anthropology theories.

I just can't stomach the anti-modernist/nostalgic tendencies of Tolkein. I mean, we get it, really, the organic communities in the old style fighting the mass-produced evil industrialists. Yeah, the usual mid-20th century British bourgeois sniffing at the real conditions of production of the English working class and prescribing - what? - the fucking SHIRE now?? A bourgeois fantasy of pre-industrial production, armed with a happy proletariat and living forests? Pack of Leavisite shite, really. That they could sell this laughable nonsense to so many in post-industrial economies remains one of the great marketing feats of history.

That was one of the best short reviews of LOTR I've read.

I mean every word of it.

;-)

Tolkien wasn't sniffing at the conditions of production - he was condemning the mass slaughter in World War I. He spent it in the trenches, and lost many friends in it. Sauron isn't an industrialist, he's a tyrant who uses his minions as cannon fodder. You must have noticed that there's a war in LOTR, surely? If not, try re-reading it.

Or, just "Pooh", as he likes to say now.

In the end, Lewis is a "happy clappy" christian writing with the fervour of the converted. Tolkien is not.

...the last book in the series, The Amber Spyglass. They're fascinating, gripping, and thought-provoking.

I don't think these books are "for kids" at all, but I'd definitely call them the "anti-Narnia."

The series has more in common with--they're precursors, really--Milton and William Blake than either Tolkien or Lewis. It's fantastic, but I can't imagine a pre-teen--or a teenager, for that matter--having the literary or life experience to get much out of it.

I haven't read any of his other books--but I'll be checking out the New Yorker piece.

Jankyn

has failed our children. These books are huge hits in England and they are indeed marketed at children. We feed our kids a steady diet of easy reading with the obvious consequences.

Anyhow I am off to the bookstore.

I remember when I was still in high school the senior AP English class was reading "Harry Potter." Than the next year after I graduated the regular English class was. This is stuff that fifth/sixth graders should be reading. My reading books weren't too bad (the summer list). Some of the books I enjoyed and other books put me to sleep after the first page.

and not just Milton." I wanna book with Los and Urizen in them!

has read the Dark Materials series. He loves them. He's not being talked down to and his imagination is being engaged and they've caused him to discuss and ask questions about things such as the idea of a god and the use of religions to control people.

And there is hope!

in the adult fantasy section, and then migrated to the children's section.

I read this article in the NYer and thought it was interesting -- and I agree with him about art and morality. I was raised without religion, and gained my entire moral framework from reading good books (and I guess my parents, too...). I'm looking forward to introducing my kids to his books when they're a little older.

I wonder if I agree with him about the pull of theocracy, though. It seems that in the big, big picture, the impulse has been in the opposite direction.

They aim to crush the body, music, sex, intoxication, laughter, disorder, the Dionysian, life. In that, they are much like the rationalists.

What these features of being, the will to life more generally, have to do with the Enlightenment is a mystery to me.