A few months ago, I wrote about Philip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials and noted that I just couldn’t understand why so many critics loved those books. To me, although there were good passages, and even good sequences, overall, the storytelling or talesmanship was weak, illogical, even nonsensical – and what’s worse, and worst of all in my opinion, it wasn’t good dramaturgy.
Recently, a London newspaper published an article concerning the resurgence in popularity of children’s author Enid Blyton. In the article, they consulted Mr. Pullman about Miss Blyton’s work. Here’s what he had to say:
“The characters are two-dimensional and the stories are mechanically recovered, like mechanically recovered meat. There’s no lasting quality in it whatsoever.
“Take Swallows and Amazons or Tom’s Midnight Garden and you can read them for the pleasure in the style. There’s no pleasure in reading Enid Blyton’s style. There’s no sense of delight or joy in the language.
“But any objections are irrelevant because people read them to find out what happens next, at a stage in their lives when that’s the most important thing for them.”
Well. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
(Composed Wednesday 10 September 2008)
