FormCritic wrote:I don't know who Pullman is.

Is that a good thing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials

Check out the areas under "Controversy"....

Besides having The Church, God and religion as the bad guys, Pullman has gone on records saying both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are idiots and their writings are crap (actually, it's a bit harsher than that, but I paraphrased...)

Mike B.

Center_Stage_Hobbies wrote:Where did you see his comments about CS Lewis and Tolkien?

I really enjoyed the Spyglass series, but if he's a Tolkien and Lewis basher, I won't buy another one of his books again.

To say that Tolkien is anything less than a literary genius is blasphemy, and should be dealt with accordingly (as in not putting more cash into Mr. Pullman's pocket!)

[url]
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/697[/url]


 

His story is a rival to the narratives put forward by two earlier Oxford writers, J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia". Pullman loathes the way the children in Narnia are killed in a car-crash. "I dislike his Narnia books because of the solution he offers to the great questions of human life: is there a God, what is the purpose, all that stuff, which he really does engage with pretty deeply, unlike Tolkien who doesn't touch it at all. ‘The Lord of the Rings' is essentially trivial. Narnia is essentially serious, though I don't like the answer Lewis comes up with. If I was doing it at all, I was arguing with Narnia. Tolkien is not worth arguing with."

Actually he's said a lot more on the subject, once he realized it was getting traction in the press and with fans. Essentially, he realized bad mouthing Lewis and Tolkien was getting him pub, and attention whore that he is, he continued.....

http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/fearnotthecompass.html

It's interesting that a man of such extraordinary imagination would have so little regard for the storytellers whose work his style resembles. Pullman scoffs at the stories of Tolkien and Lewis. He says, "The Lord of the Rings is just not interesting psychologically; there's nothing about people in it." And his scorn for Lewis's fantasy world has been widely documented. Pullman has said, "I hate the Narnia books. I hate them with a deep and bitter passion, with their view of childhood as a golden age from which sexuality and adulthood are a falling away." He has called the series "one of the most ugly and poisonous things" he's ever read.

There's lot more examples.  Frankly I don't really care what he thinks anyway, as it's very obvious reading any interview with him that he's shrewdly used his 15 minutes by attacking two great fantasy writers in the hopes of appearing "cutting edge" and "different".  Sheesh.

Mike B.

when i was a lot younger, the narnia novels were amazing. they have always stayed in my mind over the years as a damn good read - something that fired my imagination. even today my kids love them too and thats all i could ask for.

tolkein on the other hand, yes i agree, can be sometimes a very difficult read. but you also have to remember, this stuff was also written 50 years ago, a time when literacy skills are totally different to what they are now. for stories to stand the test of time for that long, and being no1 in the biggest most popular novel of the 20th century, speaks mere volumes anyway, without others criticising.

frankly i didnt realise that this pullman was saying what he was, which is actually interesting. i have that spyglass novel in the back. didnt realise it was him. i have picked that up about 50 times to try and read it, but just cant get into it - to be honest, for me, its a pile of shite. but hey what do i know?

i also wasnt too fussed on the golden compass either. it was ok. just kinda meh.

i am sure the tolkein estate just view these comments with something approaching amusement.

Al

sauromatian wrote:
Gygax both a: trash-talked Tolkien after being forced to remove Hobbits & Ents from D&D; & b: had some excessively wordy writing habits of his own that would not be tolerated in an unpublished writer.

Gygax's efforts to distance himself from Tolkien have been pretty comical.  Gygax has always maintained that D&D sprang from his interest in miniatures wargaming combined with the American pulp fantasy genre that developed parallel to (and even somewhat prededed) Tolkien.

I can see why he'd want to distance himself, both for creative and financial reasons....but Dungeons and Dragons owes a great deal to Tolkien and there is no reason to deny it.

Gygax's own fiction books range from light pulp to stinky bad.  If, however, one considers the impact of the Dungeon Masters Guide....

killjoy32 wrote:when i was a lot younger, the narnia novels were amazing. they have always stayed in my mind over the years as a damn good read - something that fired my imagination. even today my kids love them too and thats all i could ask for.

It is ironic that Tolkien found his friend's Narnia novels to be irritating and a bit threatening.

Tolkien hated the mixed genres, talking animals and jumbled history of the Narnia books.  Tolkien also strongly disliked the heavy-handed symbolism characteristic of the Narnia books, not to mention the uneven writing.  

Tolkien was also a bit alarmed that Lewis, who was the driving force behind his completion of the Lord of the Rings books, would meddle so easily in fantasy and publish multiple books before Tolkien could finish his epic.  Lewis would dash off a novel, send it to the editors and turn to a new project.  Tolkien would re-write everything from the beginning, by hand.

Xaxaxe wrote:Gleemax ... still in alpha testing as 2008 rapidly approaches.

http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Login/Default/default.aspx

Seriously, the jokes basically write themselves at this point.

Gleemax is the new Duke Nukem Forever?

sauromatian wrote:That's funny, since the world of Narnia is basically one historical place

One example of the jumbled ideas Tolkien hated was the appearance of Father Christmas in the first book.  Santa Claus literally shows up to pass out presents.  Anthromorphic animals, satyrs, werewolves and every other Narnian creature from various folklores mixed up together...it all struck Tolkien as stupid.  It was completely different from Tolkien's method of layered linguistics and carefully blended elements of Norse mythology.

Tolkien specifically disliked Celtic themes and avoided Celtic languages in his writing.  That is one reason why Tolkien tells us, straight out, that Frodo's song was foolish and his behavior was unwise.  The song stands out from others in the story in that it is a folk song/nursery rhyme that would better fit in the pages of Bored of the Rings.

Frodo's song about the Man in the Moon is an example of a part of the book that could have and should have been cut by an editor.  The inclusion of songs was one element over which Lewis and Tolkien strongly disagreed.  The trilogy is practically a musical, with characters bursting into song at unlikely moments....which is one reason why the trilogy is so ripe for parody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp-fox4d ... re=related

Just wanted to share a pretty cool moment just now.  I heard something outside my window, so as I go check to see out another if it was someone the garage motion sensor light flicks on.  So looking out at that I see a doe.  It seems to regard the light little, then slowly makes its way around my house to the hedges, where it seems to start eating (now explains the deer tracks I've had on that side of the house) but the cool thing is it leaps over the fence, and its not alone. I see 3 others roaming the back yards of my neighbors and the deer just seem to hop over fences and go about their way.
And I live in a city, course not downtown.  Course I'm sure those in more rural settings see deer more often, just to witness them moving about the neighborhood seems pretty cool. Guess its the little things in life

ShaneG.

jasonw1239 wrote:Nice! Did you get any digital pictures?
I have not seen any large wildlife in my neighborhood for a few years now (other than drunken university students!).

Didn't even think about that, just watched it all happen.

ShaneG.