Readers ask questions and Pullman answers – we all know this but still it is interesting to read because many questions that are asked have come to our own mind as well.
Following is such an interview which could be interesting, were there not so many questions that I would call downright stupid.
Is there any possibility of a film or television series of His Dark Materials? If so, to what extent would you want to retain control over the script, cast etc? Anne Bryce, Cornwall
The film rights have been sold, and the company that has them – Scholastic Films Inc - is busily talking to writers, directors, and so on at the moment. But I don’t want to be involved; it takes up too much time, and I’ve got too many new books to write.
Are you surprised that your books have appealed to an age range which stretches from nine to 90? Suzanne Weinstein, St Albans.
It would be conceited to say that I wasn’t surprised! I’m gratified, of course. But it really isn’t so surprising to find that a story about growing up is interesting to those who have been through the process as well as those who are currently going through it. Besides, I’ve always believed that the experience of enjoying stories is too good to belong just to children.
What are your views on writers as our society’s mythmakers? Regina Hopingardner, Minnesota, USA.
That’s a new one! I certainly don’t think of myself as a mythmaker. What I do is tell stories. To become a myth, a story has to have some sort of profound and powerful charge of truthfulness, I suppose, and we don’t know whether any story will have that until it’s been around for a long time - for a hundred years at least.
But I suppose that every writer sets about every novel with that thought at the back of their mind: they should, anyway. No point in setting your sights deliberately low, is there?
Some of your books are difficult to get into. I don’t seem able to be grasp the storyline very well. What age group are they for, because my Mum and I have both read them and cannot understand them? I would like to be able to, as my friends think you are extremely good. Katie Scott, Birmingham.
They’re not for a particular age group, Katie. If you can’t get into them, then put them down by all means and read something else - that’s what I do with books I can’t get along with. Have no mercy! Follow your own tastes! The only thing in favour of listening to other people’s opinions is that sometimes they’re seeing something that you’re not, and it’s worth taking a little time to see if you can see it too. It took me a long time, and several failed attempts, to read a number of books that I now think are wonderful.
Who are the most underrated children’s authors in print at the moment? Will Johnson, Ottawa, Canada.
Not an easy question, because I’m not sure whether these people are underrated or not, or where, or who by - all I know is that I rate them very highly: Janni Howker, Eva Ibbotson, Peter Dickinson, Jan Mark, William Mayne, Jill Paton Walsh, Philippa Pearce, Alan Garner, Kevin Crossley-Holland, David Almond, Anne Fine, Melvin Burgess, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo, Bernard Ashley ... the list could go on.
Do you worry that your classical references will be lost, not only on today’s children, but on younger adults as well? Should there be more classical education in schools? Patricia Kelly, Dublin.
I’m sure there SHOULD be classical education everywhere, but I don’t worry about people not knowing all about harpies, and epic similes, and so forth. I don’t put them there to be caught! If the epic similes in the fight between the bears work, for example, it’s not because people recognise them and say “Ah! An epic simile!” but because that technique makes the passage more vivid. That’s all. They have to earn their keep.
The newspapers in the past few days have talked a lot about your hostility to religion. Do you really hope to persuade children that God is dead? Robin McPaul, Fochabers.
No. I hope to keep them reading a story. This is not a sermon, and I am not a preacher. If I have any designs on the readers at all, I hope to get them to agree that kindness and courage are good qualities, and intolerance and cruelty are bad ones.
Lots of people think the Harry Potter books are linked to Satanism. Have you met the same sort of reaction? Julia Gooding, New York.
Not really. No one’s noticed what I’m doing; young Harry is diverting all the flak. Anyway, you would have to be pretty bone-headedly stupid to find anything Satanic in either Harry Potter or me. Mind you, there are a lot of stupid people around, as we know.
How will you cope with all the attention since you’ve won the Whitbread prize? Is it going to be harder to hide away in your garden shed? Pat Short, Cardiff.
It’ll die down in a week or so. Actually, it’s too late to hide. I think you have to make a decision right at the beginning of your career as a published writer: whether to answer questions and make yourself available, within reason, or to take the Salinger/Pynchon line and refuse all contact. By the time you wish you’d done the second, it’s usually too late, and you’re committed to the first.
Do you actually write for children, or with children in mind? Or do you simply write, and what emerges happens to be something that interests children? Mary Carter, Lille, France.
The latter ... more or less. I do have an audience in mind, but it’s an audience that includes children and doesn’t simply consist of them. I want children and their books to be included with everyone else, not shut away in a little nursery. So I hope to find - and so far I’m lucky that I have found - an audience that’s as mixed as possible.
I’m thinking of joining a creative writing course? Would you recommend such a thing, or is creativity something that one either has or does not have? Dwight Ball, Manchester.
I’ve always felt uneasy about courses of that sort. No doubt there are people who enjoy them and benefit from them, and I know there are good teachers of creative writing; but personally, I’d find it absolutely impossible to share my work with anyone else. I really wouldn’t want to talk about it. It’s got to be secret and hidden while I work on it. “Creativity”, I think, is a habit that you can develop as much as a gift that you have or don’t have. But I can only go by my own experience.
How do you go about writing a book, from the idea to actually sitting down to write? Is the outline of the book completed from start of story to some form of conclusion before you start to write? Amy Anderson, York.
The first thing is a vague and ghostly impression of something so intriguing that nothing will satisfy me till I’ve daydreamed about it. A picture – a scene - a mood. Not unlike a dream. Then comes the sense of a shape - a story shape that will somehow embody or contain this mood; and then comes the long work of writing it. I never make a detailed plan. It would be too dull to bear if I knew everything that was going to happen. I write to find it out. When it’s all written, and I can read it all and see what’s wrong with it, I can make a plan and set about the carpentry to put it in a better shape.
You say you were a fan of comics when you were a boy. Do you think you might ever write a comic strip? Katherine Barnes
What I’d really like to do is write it AND draw it. I go to life classes whenever I have a chance, and one of these days I’ll do a book with bigger pictures than I was allowed to draw for the trilogy (the chapter-heading vignettes are my first outing as a professional illustrator!) So yes, I’d like to. But will I ever have the time?
Do you know if girls like your books more than boys? Do you think about that kind of thing when you’re planning a book? Alison Peters, London
I think it’s about equal, Alison, to judge from the letters I get. I’m pleased about that, because as I said in answer to a question above, I want the readership to be as mixed as possible. But I don’t PLAN it like that, necessarily.
At the age of 91 I was given your first book (Golden Compass in USA) by an 11-year-old great-great who told me it was the best book he had ever read. I am almost of the same mind.
I am now on to the second volume and hesitate to ask any profound question, I have several, so content myself with asking your Oxford college. In my time at Merton it was said you could have travelled from one end of England to the other on Merton property. Was there another college that could make the same claim? Morris Martin, Tucson, Arizona
Very good to hear from you. I was at Exeter College - never one of the rich ones; and I used to hear it said about Magdalen. Or was it St John's? It's probably the invention of some medieval PR whizz-kid.
What books did you read as a child that you feel have influenced your writing the most? Robert Taylor, St Asaph, Wales
The most? It's very hard to say; but I have always enjoyed the works of Tove Jansson, the inventor of the Moomins, since first reading them at a very tender age.
Dear Mr Pullman, I ran across your trilogy in Amazon.com and, being an inveterate sci-fi and fantasy reader, and not realizing your work was Great Lit., bought, devoured and hugely enjoyed it. Thank you so much - and please do dazzle us with wonder and invention again and yet again. Frederick Cryer, Kegnæs Island, Sydals, Denmark.
Thank you - very kind!
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