Pullman on the CBC

Proving that the CBC is a cabal of godless commies, the radio programme Writers & Company has devoted two episodes running to a long interview with that fount of atheist evangelism, the man who strikes terror into the hearts of Bill Donohue and Catholic school boards everywhere (OK, a few boards in the 905 belt), Phillip Pullman. Disappointingly, this Corrupter Of Youth turned out to be quite a mild, affable chap and hardly said anything at all bad about religion. A random scattering of some relevant points:

• The host, Eleanor Wachtel, referred to Pullman as "a Church of England atheist", to which Pullman agreed. He seems to have an affectionate nostalgia for the Anglican Church (so does Dawkins, BTW) -- he loves the language of the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer (but only the old, pre-revision, version). He fondly recalls his grandfather, a vicar, as wonderful story-teller.
• Contrary to garbled reports that he loathes C.S.Lewis, he thinks Lewis' lit-crit work is excellent, and that he was a good story-teller with an engaging prose style. He likes the Narnia stories until the very end: having taken his Narnia children through many trials and tribulations, growing their strength and character, instead of having them live on in our world to make it a better place, Lewis kills them off. And this, as expressed in the last book, is an outcome devoutly to be wished -- dead and in Heaven is better than living and doing good. Pullman also can't forgive Lewis for condemning Susan for simply growing up and discovering things like a social life and sexual attraction (I don't think I agree with Pullman's interpretation, though I'm not prepared to argue a point which seems to have generated a fair amount of commentary over the years).
• The authors Pullman really doesn't like are A.A.Milne and J.R.R.Tolkien. I'm not sure what he has against Winnie the Pooh, but he dismisses LOTR as "trivial". It has, in Pullman's view, no real moral ambiguity or struggle. The good and evil are always obvious. Again, I'm not sure I agree, but then I don't have a BA from Oxford, so what do I know?

My take on the His Dark Materials trilogy: the first book was bit "thin" dramatically -- definitely kid-lit -- but they picked up after that. I'm looking forward to the movie.

Oh, and my daemon is an osprey named "Brienne".