Philip Pullman
“His Dark Materials” is recognised as a classic. Tim de Lisle analyses its author’s crisp and vivid prose
By Tim de Lisle
Almost 150 years ago, Matthew Arnold, then professor of poetry at Oxford, gave a series of lectures, “On Translating Homer”. One point he made, about Homer’s essential qualities, has echoed down the ages. “He is eminently rapid; he is eminently plain and direct…in his syntax and his words…[and]…in his matter and ideas; and...he is eminently noble.”
Rapid, plain and direct: there is a writer of epic narrative, living near Oxford now, whose work is all this. Strip away the Victorian snobbery and Arnold could be issuing a blueprint for Philip Pullman.
More from 1843 magazine
1843 magazine | “It’s been a very long two weeks”: how the Gaza protests changed Columbia
The camp has been cleared. But the faculty of the Ivy League university remains deeply divided
1843 magazine | Rahul Gandhi is on the march. But where is he heading?
He wants to be the champion of Indian liberalism. First he needs to save his party from irrelevance
1843 magazine | It began as a rewilding experiment. Now a bear is on trial for murder
The death of a jogger in the Italian Alps has sparked a furious debate about the relationship between humans and nature