Re: Philip Pullman - Lyra's Oxford

Deborah wrote:
> > > > Not to drag up *this* whole argument again, but it DOES tie a little too 
> > > > comfortably with my other, and bigger complaint about Pullman:
> > >
> > > Derek, you've said a lot of strange things over the years, but I think
> > > you've topped yourself with this suggestion that any successful fantasy
> > > writer whose work you dislike has a clinical disorder which you have
> > > diagnosed without having any personal experience of these individals or
> > > having the credentials to judge such a disorder if you did know them.
> > >
> > > That's just weird, man.

I didn't say ANY--
Just at suggesting that if L'Engle and Pullman might have a few inner,
erm, "motivations" in common, how does, say, Pullman's "The thought of a
child without a daemon made Lyra horrified with disgust" differ from
L'Engle's "Actually have a reason to *like* Mr. Jenkins?...Meg couldn't
undestand how that was possible!" from "Wind in the Door" (*another*
rather heavily author-treatise laden "fantasy")?

...I can apply a half-dozen litmus tests in saying that it looks like a
duck and quacks like a duck, but I get complaints that I'm being
*unfair* in saying that it might NOT be a crested blue heron?  ;)

> What's more, even if he were a card-carrying loony, why does that make any
> difference to the book?  How would that become your biggest literary
> complaint about his work?   
>
> > A fantasy should ideally transport you to another place or time, 
>  
> That statement reminds me of the woman on another group who keeps telling
> people what vampires can and cannot do, and who doesn't seem to grasp that
> since somebody makes them up, they can do whatever they want.
>
> Fantasies can do whatever their authors please.

Well, that's a matter of opinion--The "easier" authors tend to hold it.
Those with a little more discipline believe that most fantasy roots
itself in stories and ideas no one really *does* know the origin to but
take for granted as "real"...And "making yourself at home" by making
the whole darn thing up--especially as a convenient excuse-shelter to
personally talk the reader's ear off about what you happen to think--is
the action of an ugly, self-serving tourist who'd rather sit on the
beaches of Faerie with his own deck chair and pina colada.

Writing fantasy (and I should know :) ) requires as much moral fiber as
historical, or horror, or even mystery, in that it requires sacrificing
your own need for expression or attention to a larger code of "rules"
that was around long before you arrived--
Let's just say that although those for whom NPD tends to be a problem
generally tend to be attracted to the lure of fantasy (for the quick
appeal of personal dressup and universe-control), they're also the ones
who, in the end, tend to be rather bad at it--It requires actually
caring and showing interest in other people, places, creatures,
traditions and codes besides one's self, and putting their needs ahead
of one's own.

> It's a big jump from "it ain't my kind of fantasy" to the "this is a
> failure and can't be allowed" claim you're extending.  And the problem is
> what you're using for support is the fact that you didn't like the books.

Not *liking* the books is one thing (I "didn't like" Madonna's picture
books, for one, but that hasn't changed my musical tastes)--
Having my enjoyment of what should be a disconnected story with its own
crafted or semi-organic universe interrupted by moral *personal*
objections to an author who didn't feel the story was as important as
himself is a slightly larger misdemeanor...
If I'm "supposed" to read the author, not the books, well, I don't like
the author.  Which is a little more serious issue.  And the books aren't
going to come from anywhere else.

And given the nature of the beast, if he doesn't personally think that's
a "problem" (ie., why fix what "isn't broken"?), I also read with the
sinking suspicion that any previously stated grievances AREN'T going to
miraculously improve any from here.

Derek Janssen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]