Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman
Pullman in April 2005
Born	(1946-10-19) 19 October 1946 Norwich, United Kingdom
Occupation	Novelist
Education	English literature
Alma mater	Exeter College, Oxford
Genres	Fantasy
Notable work(s)	His Dark Materials series The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
Notable award(s)	Carnegie Medal 1995 Guardian Prize 1996 Astrid Lindgren Award 2005
Influences John Milton, William Blake, Edward Blishen
Influenced Christopher Paolini
www.philip-pullman.com

Philip Pullman CBE, FRSL (born 19 October 1946) is a British writer born in Norwich. He is the author of several best-selling books, most notably the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials and the fictionalised biography of Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. In 2008, The Times named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945".

The first book of His Dark Materials (Northern Lights) won the 1995 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject. For the 70th anniversary of the Medal it was named one of the top ten winning works by a panel, composing the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite. Northern Lights won the public vote from that shortlist and was thus named the all-time "Carnegie of Carnegies" on 21 June 2007. It has been adapted as a film under its U.S. title, The Golden Compass.

Life and career

Philip Pullman was born in Norwich, England, the son of Audrey Evelyn Pullman (née Merrifield) and Royal Air Force pilot Alfred Outram Pullman. The family travelled with his father's job, including to Southern Rhodesia, though the majority of his formative years was spent in Llanbedr in Ardudwy, north Wales.

His father was killed in a plane crash in 1953 when Pullman was seven, being posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). Pullman said at the beginning of a 2008 exchange that to him as a boy, his father "was a hero, steeped in glamour, killed in action defending his country" and had been "training pilots, I think." Pullman was then presented with a report from The London Gazette of 1954 "which carried the official RAF news of the day [and] said that the medal was given for 'gallant and distinguished service' during the Mau Mau uprising. 'The main task of the Harvards [the squadron of planes led by his father] has been bombing and machine-gunning Mau Mau and their hideouts in densely wooded and difficult country.' This included 'diving steeply into the gorges of [various] rivers, often in conditions of low cloud and driving rain.' Testing conditions, yes, but not much opposition from the enemy, the journalist in the exchange continued. Very few of the Mau Mau had guns that could land a blow on an aircraft." Pullman responded to this new information, writing "my father probably doesn't come out of this with very much credit, judged by the standards of modern liberal progressive thought" and accepted the new information as "a serious challenge to his childhood memory."

His mother remarried and, with a move to Australia, came Pullman's discovery of comic books including Superman and Batman, a medium which he continues to espouse. From 1957 he was educated at Ysgol Ardudwy in Harlech, Gwynedd, and spent time in Norfolk with his grandfather, a clergyman. Around this time Pullman discovered John Milton's Paradise Lost, which would become a major influence for His Dark Materials.

From 1963, Pullman attended Exeter College, Oxford, receiving a Third class BA in 1968. In an interview with the Oxford Student he stated that he "did not really enjoy the English course" and that "I thought I was doing quite well until I came out with my third class degree and then I realised that I wasn’t — it was the year they stopped giving fourth class degrees otherwise I’d have got one of those". He discovered William Blake's illustrations around 1970, which would also later influence him greatly.

Pullman married Judith Speller in 1970 and began teaching middle school children ages 9 to 13 at Bishop Kirk Middle School in Summertown, North Oxford and writing school plays. His first published work was The Haunted Storm, which joint-won the New English Library's Young Writer's Award in 1972. He nevertheless refuses to discuss it. Galatea, an adult fantasy-fiction novel, followed in 1978, but it was his school plays which inspired his first children's book, Count Karlstein, in 1982. He stopped teaching around the publication of The Ruby in the Smoke (1986), his second children's book, whose Victorian setting is indicative of Pullman's interest in that era.

Pullman taught part-time at Westminster College, Oxford, between 1988 and 1996, continuing to write children's stories. He began His Dark Materials in about 1993. Volume I, Northern Lights was published in 1995 (entitled The Golden Compass in the U.S., 1996). Pullman won both the annual Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a similar award that authors may not win twice.

Pullman has been writing full-time since 1996, but continues to deliver talks and writes occasionally for The Guardian. He was awarded a CBE in the New Year's Honours list in 2004. He also co-judged the prestigious Christopher Tower Poetry Prize (awarded by Oxford University) in 2005 with Gillian Clarke. Pullman also began lecturing at a seminar in English at his alma mater, Exeter College, Oxford, in 2004, the same year that he was elected President of the Blake Society. In 2004 Pullman also guest-edited The Mays Anthology, a collection of new writing from students at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge.

In 2005 Pullman won the biggest prize in children's literature, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council, recognising his career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense". According to the presentation, "Pullman radically injects new life into fantasy by introducing a variety of alternative worlds and by allowing good and evil to become ambiguous." In every genre, "he combines storytelling and psychological insight of the highest order."

In 2008, he started working on The Book of Dust, a sequel to his completed His Dark Materials trilogy, and "The Adventures of John Blake", a story for the British children's comic The DFC, with artist John Aggs.

On 23 November 2007, Pullman was made an honorary professor at Bangor University. In June 2008, he became a Fellow supporting the MA in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University. In September 2008, he hosted "The Writer's Table" for Waterstone's bookshop chain, highlighting 40 books which have influenced his career. In October 2009, he became a patron of the Palestine Festival of Literature. He is also a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres

Pullman has a strong commitment to traditional British civil liberties and is noted for his criticism of growing state authority and government encroachment into everyday life. In February 2009, he was the keynote speaker at the Convention on Modern Liberty in London and wrote an extended piece in The Times condemning the Labour government for its attacks on basic civil rights. Later, he and other authors threatened to stop visiting schools in protest at new laws requiring them to be vetted to work with youngsters—though officials claimed that the laws had been misinterpreted.

On 24 June 2009, Pullman was awarded the degree of D. Litt. (Doctor of Letters), honoris causa, by the University of Oxford at the Encænia ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre.

In 2012, during a break from writing The Book Of Dust, companion novel to the Dark Material Trilogy series, Pullman has been asked by Penguin Classics to curate 50 of Grimms' classic fairytales, from their compendium of over 200 tales. "They are not all of the same quality," he says. "Some are easily much better than others. And some are obvious classics. You can't do a selected Grimms' without Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella and so on." Pullman chose some more obscure tales, too. Penguin Classics are never illustrated, so unlike many fairytale collections, this one does not contain pictures.

Beginning in August 2013, Pullman was elected President of the Society of Authors - the "ultimate honour" awarded by the British writers body, and a position first held by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

His Dark Materials

Main article: His Dark Materials

His Dark Materials is a trilogy consisting of Northern Lights (titled The Golden Compass in North America), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. Northern Lights won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in the UK in 1995. The Amber Spyglass was awarded both 2001 Whitbread Prize for best children's book and the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in January 2002, the first children's book to receive that award. The series won popular acclaim in late 2003, taking third place in the BBC's Big Read poll. Pullman later wrote two companion pieces to the trilogy, entitled Lyra's Oxford, and Once Upon a Time in the North. A third companion piece Pullman refers to as the "green book" will expand upon his character Will. He has plans for one more, the as-yet-unpublished The Book of Dust. This book is not a continuation of the trilogy but will include characters and events from His Dark Materials.

Pullman has narrated unabridged audiobooks of the three main novels in His Dark Materials. While Pullman is the narrator, the other parts are read by different actors, including Jo Wyatt, Steven Webb, Peter England, Stephen Thorne and Douglas Blackwell.

Perspective on religion

Pullman is a supporter of the British Humanist Association and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. New Yorker journalist Laura Miller has described Pullman as one of England's most outspoken atheists; Pullman describes himself as being an agnostic atheist.

On 15 September 2010, Pullman along with 54 other public figures signed an open letter, published in The Guardian newspaper, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI being given "the honour of a state visit" to the UK, arguing that he has led and condoned global abuses of human rights. The letter says "The state of which the pope is head has also resisted signing many major human rights treaties and has formed its own treaties ("concordats") with many states which negatively affect the human rights of citizens of those states". Co-signees included Stephen Fry, Professor Richard Dawkins, Terry Pratchett, Jonathan Miller and Ken Follett.

Literary critic Alan Jacobs (of Wheaton College) said that in His Dark Materials Pullman replaced the theist world-view of John Milton's Paradise Lost with a Rousseauist one. Donna Freitas, professor of religion at Boston University, argued on BeliefNet.com that challenges to traditional images of God should be welcomed as part of a "lively dialogue about faith", and Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has proposed that His Dark Materials be taught as part of religious education in schools. The Christian writers Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware "also uncover spiritual themes within the books." Pullman has also referred to himself as knowingly "of the Devil's party", a reference to William Blake's revisionist take on Milton in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Pullman's latest novel, a contribution to the Canongate Myth Series, is The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. It is "a far more direct exploration of the foundations of Christianity and the church as well as an examination of the fascination and power of storytelling."

The His Dark Materials books have been criticised by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and Focus on the Family. Peter Hitchens has argued that Pullman actively pursues an anti-Christian agenda. In support of this contention, he cites an interview in which Pullman is quoted as saying: "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief." In the same interview, Pullman also acknowledges that a controversy would be likely to boost sales. "But I'm not in the business of offending people. I find the books upholding certain values that I think are important, such as life is immensely valuable and this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place. We should do what we can to increase the amount of wisdom in the world".

Peter Hitchens views the His Dark Materials series as a direct rebuttal of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia; Pullman has criticized the Narnia books as religious propaganda. Both Pullman's and Lewis's books contain religious allegory that features talking animals, parallel worlds, and children who face adult moral choices that determine the ultimate fate of those worlds.

Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, praised His Dark Materials as a fresh alternative to C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling. He described the author as one "whose books have begun to dissolve the frontier between adult and juvenile fiction."

Screen adaptations

• A mini-series adaptation of I Was a Rat was produced by the BBC and aired in three one-hour installments in 2001.
• A film adaptation of The Butterfly Tattoo finished principal photography on 30 September 2007. The Butterfly Tattoo is a project, supported by Philip Pullman, to allow young artists a chance to gain experience in the film industry. The film is produced by the Dutch production company Dynamic Entertainment.
• A co-produced BBC and WGBH Boston television adaptation of The Ruby in the Smoke, starring Billie Piper and Julie Walters, was screened in the UK on BBC One on 27 December 2006, and broadcast on PBS Masterpiece Theatre in America on 4 February 2007. The television adaptation of the second book in the series, The Shadow in the North, aired on the BBC on 26 December 2007. The BBC and WGBH announced plans to adapt the next two Sally Lockhart novels, The Tiger in the Well, and The Tin Princess, for television as well; however, since The Shadow in the North aired in 2007, no information has arisen regarding an adaptation of The Tiger in the Well.
• A film adaptation of Northern Lights, titled The Golden Compass, was released in December 2007 by New Line Cinema, starring Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra, along with Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Eva Green, Sam Elliott, and Ian McKellen.

Works

These are only some of Pullman's books.

Non-series books

• 1972 The Haunted Storm
• 1976 Galatea
• 1982 Count Karlstein
• 1987 How to be Cool
• 1989 Spring-Heeled Jack
• 1990 The Broken Bridge
• 1992 The White Mercedes
• 1993 The Wonderful Story of Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp
• 1995 Clockwork, or, All Wound Up
• 1995 The Firework-Maker's Daughter
• 1998 Mossycoat
• 1998 The Butterfly Tattoo (re-issue of The White Mercedes)
• 1999 I was a Rat! or The Scarlet Slippers
• 2000 Puss in Boots: The Adventures of That Most Enterprising Feline
• 2004 The Scarecrow and his Servant
• 2010 The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
• 2012 Fairy Tales From The Brothers Grimm

Sally Lockhart

• 1985 The Ruby in the Smoke
• 1986 The Shadow in the North (first published as The Shadow in the Plate)
• 1990 The Tiger in the Well
• 1994 The Tin Princess

The New-Cut Gang

• 1994 Thunderbolt's Waxwork
• 1995 The Gasfitter's Ball

His Dark Materials

• 1995 Northern Lights, retitled The Golden Compass in the US
• 1997 The Subtle Knife
• 2000 The Amber Spyglass

Companion books

• 2003 Lyra's Oxford
• 2008 Once Upon a Time in the North
• The Book of Dust (not yet published)

Plays

• 1990 Frankenstein
• 1992 Sherlock Holmes and the Limehouse Horror

Non-fiction

• 1978 Ancient Civilizations
• 1978 Using the Oxford Junior Dictionary

Comics

• 2008 The Adventures of John Blake in The DFC

Further reading

• Hugh Rayment-Pickard, The Devil’s Account: Philip Pullman and Christianity (London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2004).
• Lenz, Millicent (2005). His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on Phillip Pullman's Trilogy. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-3207-2. 
• Wheat, Leonard F. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials – A Multiple Allegory: Attacking Religious Superstition in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Paradise Lost.
• Robert Darby: Intercision-Circumcision: His Dark Materials, a disturbing allegory of genital mutilation [1].
• Gerald O’Collins SJ., Philip Pullman’s Jesus (London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2010).

External links

• Philip-Pullman.com Official site
• Philip Pullman at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Philip Pullman at the Internet Movie Database
• Philip Pullman at House of Legend
• Philip Pullman at Random House Australia
• Philip Pullman: a life in writingThe Guardian, 4 March 2011, "Young fans ask Philip Pullman questions".
• Interview: Philip Pullman: new brand of environmentalismThe Daily Telegraph, 19 January 2008, "Paradise regained" Extract from interview with Pullman in Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth?"
• Article: Philip Pullman: Kill humans and ration heating The Register, January 21, 2008, ""This is a crisis as big as war"
• Article: Pullman criticizes modern fiction The Guardian, 12 August 2002, "Fiction becoming trivial and worthless, says top author".
• Article: The Dark Materials debate: life, God, the universe The Daily Telegraph, 17 March 2004, Philip Pullman and Rowan Williams debate on Religion in His Dark Materials