More puffery from Pullman
Nov. 27th, 2004 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamflowerHere's some more of Phillip Pullman's *opinions* on the great JRRT (courtesy of rec.arts.books.tolkien):
> The following, forwarded without permission, was posted by Philip
> Pullman on the Child_Lit email list hosted at Rutgers University. I
> thought it might be of interest since it's his own defence of what he
> said:
>
> "I see that some reported words of mine have annoyed Tolkien fans. Well,
> just for the record, I said almost everything I wanted to say about
> Tolkien in the article "The Republic of Heaven" in The Horn Book
> Magazine, November/December 2001. One other thing has occurred to me
> since then, and it's to do with his style. At its best it is plain,
> vivid, and muscular, but at its worst it's like an impressionable
> Edwardian schoolboy's idea of great writing - a fin-de-siecle
> preciousness, a ponderous solemnity, a fake archaism in which, as
> pointed out by someone recently, backwards everything is said. I don't
> think he ever came to terms with the twentieth century, and modernism in
> literature, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, might
> as well not have existed for him. He remained that turn-of-the-century
> schoolboy intoxicated by nostalgia for a world that had long gone, and
> for a fustian style of prose that had long ceased to be able to say
> anything that didn't smell of mothballs. And that, I maintain, is a
> serious problem for a writer trying to tackle serious subjects, and for
> a readership trying to defend him.
>
> Philip Pullman"
******
And now my rant:
Pullman is such an ignorant fool. But to be so arrongant with it just irritates me. He seems to feel that "speaking forsoothly" has no place in anything written in "modern times". I agree that it sometimes is done badly--but never by JRRT, who knew *exactly* how to use language, archaic or otherwise. I think perhaps it is a shame that there have been a few generations who have grown up not really understanding archaic language because it's avoided as irrelevant. Probably in another generation, Shakespeare will have to be translated for students to be able to read it. It burns me up to think that young people are not given credit for having a brain or two.
When I was in the fifth grade (10 years old, for non-Americans) I first read Howard Pyle's Robin Hood. I loved the archaic language. Like LotR would a few years later, it transported me to another time and place. This is NOT a Bad Thing! for heaven's sake!
****
Okay, rant over. Thanks.
> The following, forwarded without permission, was posted by Philip
> Pullman on the Child_Lit email list hosted at Rutgers University. I
> thought it might be of interest since it's his own defence of what he
> said:
>
> "I see that some reported words of mine have annoyed Tolkien fans. Well,
> just for the record, I said almost everything I wanted to say about
> Tolkien in the article "The Republic of Heaven" in The Horn Book
> Magazine, November/December 2001. One other thing has occurred to me
> since then, and it's to do with his style. At its best it is plain,
> vivid, and muscular, but at its worst it's like an impressionable
> Edwardian schoolboy's idea of great writing - a fin-de-siecle
> preciousness, a ponderous solemnity, a fake archaism in which, as
> pointed out by someone recently, backwards everything is said. I don't
> think he ever came to terms with the twentieth century, and modernism in
> literature, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, might
> as well not have existed for him. He remained that turn-of-the-century
> schoolboy intoxicated by nostalgia for a world that had long gone, and
> for a fustian style of prose that had long ceased to be able to say
> anything that didn't smell of mothballs. And that, I maintain, is a
> serious problem for a writer trying to tackle serious subjects, and for
> a readership trying to defend him.
>
> Philip Pullman"
******
And now my rant:
Pullman is such an ignorant fool. But to be so arrongant with it just irritates me. He seems to feel that "speaking forsoothly" has no place in anything written in "modern times". I agree that it sometimes is done badly--but never by JRRT, who knew *exactly* how to use language, archaic or otherwise. I think perhaps it is a shame that there have been a few generations who have grown up not really understanding archaic language because it's avoided as irrelevant. Probably in another generation, Shakespeare will have to be translated for students to be able to read it. It burns me up to think that young people are not given credit for having a brain or two.
When I was in the fifth grade (10 years old, for non-Americans) I first read Howard Pyle's Robin Hood. I loved the archaic language. Like LotR would a few years later, it transported me to another time and place. This is NOT a Bad Thing! for heaven's sake!
****
Okay, rant over. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 10:29 pm (UTC)As to JRRT's style, I have heard even a few of his admirers who find it difficult, I love it myself, especially the wide variation he shows even in his archaism--the archaism of the Elves is different from that of the Rohirrim which is also different than that of the Gondorians.
But to say that modern stuff is better just because it's modern is the mark of someone who has no depth, and mistakes all the grittiness and angst and tawdriness of most modern stuff for substance.
I shouldn't let it get to me, I suppose, but as I said JRRT can't shoot back from the grave.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-28 06:49 am (UTC)Actually, I think this guy is doing a great job of shooting - himself in the foot! Your comment But to say that modern stuff is better just because it's modern is the mark of someone who has no depth is what I was trying to say (only you did so better, ;)) though from my reading of just this snippet, he gave no reason that I could see to back up his claim that it was.
In my personal experience, it isn't and so his claim that he prefers modern writing tells me that 1) we have very different taste and 2) I'm probably not going to agree with anything he says. End of story.
I have never heard of this person, but I stay away from literary critics as a rule. Unless they are writing anything entertaining in itself, I see no use for their services. What one loves, the other hates and my reaction generally is different from any of them.
I must agree with you also on JRRT's various tones. They might be all archaic, but they differ. There is his 'hobbit voice' - countrified and comfortable, his 'elf voice' - grand and mysterious but joyful, and the one I like to call his 'epic voice' - most visible at the end of ROTK - where he writes as if he is penning a legend of old (and which I love). Of all of them, I find the epic voice the easiest to mimic but it is also one that can appear pompous if you aren't very careful. JRRT was never pompous and his epic voice always stirs me. (might be the subject matter too... LOL!)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-28 07:18 am (UTC)He supposedly wrote the stories as an "antidote" to what he considered the proselytizing of JRRT and CS Lewis, and he has generally indicated contempt for people who read fantasy. I did not know anything about him when I read his books to begin with, but having read them, his opinions do not surprise me.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-28 07:50 am (UTC)I guess some people are just angry and contrary all the time. I've been known to be that way myself at times (big surprise there, eh?) but there comes a time when you have to realize the whole rest of the world doesn't necessarily agree with you.