Pullman on Rowling

[Tim Regan]

There's a book festival in the UK in the border town Hay-on-Wye 
http://books.guardian.co.uk/guardianhayfestival2002/ The Guardian 
Newspaper, who sponsors the event, has put some of the talks given 
there online. These include a talk by Philip Pullman, who wrote the 
Dark Materials trilogy. It's audio and is at 
http://windows.streamuk.com/hayonwye/2002/18.wma 

At one point he's asked if the Harry Potter effect has helped his 
sales. Before answering he gives the following tantalizing appraisal 
of Rowling's work. (It is 34 minutes into the 1:04:21 clip)

"Well, just to clear up my opinion of Harry Potter, which you 
carefully invited me to give without actually asking directly. I 
think the stories are great fun, I think she does tell a story very 
vividly. She has this extraordinary property which seems to occur 
once in a generation. Enid Blyton had it, Roald Dahl had it, and now 
she's got it: the quality of making children want to read on without 
any effort at all. It's a mysterious thing, it's partly to do with 
story telling but it's not only that. The difference between them 
and J.K. Rowling though is that when adults now read Enid Blyton 
they think `what rubbish', when they read Roald Dahl they think `oh, 
this is nasty and cruel', and when they read J.K. Rowling they think 
`well she's much cleverer than Enid Blyton, she's not as cruel as 
Dahl – must be very good'. There are things she can do well and 
other things she doesn't do so well."

It's infuriating he doesn't go on to say which things she does well 
and which things she does badly but I thought it was an interesting 
view.

The only other author I've heard give an opinion on the Harry Potter 
books was China Meiville when he was giving a talk here at work. I 
asked him if he liked the HP books to which he replied that he 
thought they were "nothing but an echo chamber of clichés"!!!

Later a kid asks him what he'd think of his own work if he was J.K. 
Rowling (convoluted I know) and he replies that he has talked to her 
and she hasn't read his novels, not because she doesn't like him, 
but because she hasn't had the time.

There's also a video of the talk by Tanya Seghatchian, the co-
producer of the two Harry Potter films, about literary magic and 
special effects http://windows.streamuk.com/hayonwye/2002/18.wma But 
I haven't checked that out yet so I don't know if it's any good.


Cheers,


Dumbledad.