Philip Pullmann

I should have added that it was about his 40 fav books list. You can post about his fiction too.

:-)

Other remarks:

- Fiction-wise its highly amusing that he likes German authors so much (most English authors would place Russian or French or not bother and go for Americans).

- Makes me feel guilty I ever stopped reading non-fiction. Frances Yates and William James look so good.

- I read this list about the time it was published (a few years ago) and I end up checking how much of it I have read about once a year (not thinking about that I must read more of it, its just something I forget about then end up coming back to it, this time it was because I got hold of The Anatomy of Melancholy). I am on seven. But I feel to read something from a genre and not go through a bunch of books from that genre would not feel in the spirit of it. Fiction-wise (the one bit I know something about) you just don't list Musil unless you've read lots quite a lot of fiction, or have read some and feel the thing is deficient somehow. Just reading Arthur Ransome without reading the other stuff around him etc.

I will read Bishop, Burton (or parts of it, the thing is fkn massive, also came across this cracking piece by Pullmann on it and that is indeed the first thing he says), Van Gogh (bah I saw a selection and didn't get it), O'Brien, Thomson (if I can get a cheap copy), Von Kleist, Stevens.

The full piece has three line comments by PP on all of these items. Can't find it right now (was re-printed in a blog somewhere).

it's a nice list. as you say, there's thought - it seems to sit slightly uneasily between 'favourite books' and 'some sort of modern canon'. he's one of those people whose aggressive secularism makes me wary of him - there's a more than a touch of the GWM in some of his pronouncements - but I think he's a good judge from what i've read. If it can be read as part canon, it reads slightly oddly as modern pagan syllabus. there's a lot of magic here - Yates, Wolf Solent, Grimm, MR James, Burton - but it's constrained by genre or history.

Frances Yates does a very good job of specifying the nature of magical belief in the Renaissance, and showing clearly the lineage of occult thought. Empson following CS Lewis criticises her judgment on the moral values of neoplatonic middle spirits, saying that her approach ignores important popular fairies such as Puck, and the important Shakespearian being Ariel. ( CS Lewis is himself a v good writer on showing the specifically strange elements of history and historical language than trying to make it 'relevant' - a pet hate of mine). The Art of Memory is a really good history of the lines of thought, via Ficino's translation of the Hermetica, that make up some Renaissance structural belief systems and metaphysical taxonomies, which iirc lead into many ares like garden design, masques and have considerable potential as ways of interpreting theatre and poetry. woof to thread.

i'm tempted to vote either Summer Lightning or the MR James, both of which are without qualification perfect.

Wolf Solent is very good I think, but screwy and not an easy read - sits squarely in my interest in 20th C pastoral/malign pastoral, so i'm kind of partial. one of those books where the canon/favourite book uneasiness creeps back in (it could only ever be the latter surely).
Molesworth obv - i wonder how it reads for children today. that said, like many people who like molesworth i was at a comp and loved M, so maybe it lasts. I hope so.

HG Wells another slightly odd choice - what does he signify? HG Wells as an avatar of the modern fable? He has a quality which I guess feels Pullman-esque, but i can't put my finger on it right now - early 20th C non-modernist British fiction is so strange (I might have chosen Kipling short stories rather than Kim and Borges to cover some of the same area off).

Kim - Well, fine, but as above, I'd have gone like a shot for a short-story collection like Debits and Credits, or perhaps more in the Pullman vein, Puck of Pook's Hill.

Hang on, need to go and make a cup of tea.

haha I had to look up WM :-) Here we go, the list w/Philip's comments.

COMPLETE POEMS
by Elizabeth Bishop
How simple some great poetry can seem - as x` as water, and as necessary. Bishop is incomparable: “Awful, but cheerful,” she said.

THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
by Robert Burton
A vast rickety structure of learning, wit, sense, nonsense, bizarre anecdotes, kindness, and wisdom. A humane guide and antidote to this terrible affliction.

A PERFECT SPY
by John le Carré
A perfect blend of form, subject, sensibility and moral power. Le Carré's best book, and one of the finest English novels of the 20th century.

THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins
For sheer plotting genius, Collins had no rival. If you've never read this, I can promise you one of the most gripping stories of all time.

KOLYMSKY HEIGHTS
by Lionel Davidson
The best thriller I've ever read, and I've read plenty. A solidly researched and bone-chilling adventure in a savage setting, with a superb hero.

THE ANCESTOR'S TALE
by Richard Dawkins
Dawkins at his very best: a beautiful clarity of exposition, and an unslaked sense of wonder at the grandeur, richness and complexity of nature.

THE COMPLETE BRIGADIER GERARD STORIES
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Everyone knows Sherlock Holmes, but Brigadier Gerard is a marvellous creation - proud, valiant and absurd.

THE LETTERS OF VINCENT VAN GOGH
On the evidence of these honest, revealing and very moving letters, the greatest painter was a great writer as well; and his brother was a saint.

ART AND ILLUSION
by E.H. Gombrich
This is all about the mysterious business of looking and seeing, and E.H. Gombrich looked deeper and saw more than almost any other writer on art.

THE COMPLETE FAIRY TALES
by the Brothers Grimm
The fountain, the origin. Read one of these stories every day and your narrative taste will be purified, strengthened and refreshed.

THE CASTAFIORE EMERALD
by Hergé
Hergé was the best at everything: plots, draughtsmanship, jokes, characterisation, timing - he could do the lot, and this is his best book.

THE PRIVATE MEMOIRS AND CONFESSIONS OF A JUSTIFIED SINNER
by James Hogg
A brilliant, chilling and subtle account of religious derangement. Every self-righteous fundamentalist ought to read this, but of course they won't.

COUNT MAGNUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES
by M.R. James
I don't believe in ghosts, but I'm frightened of them. They don't come any scarier than in these superb examples of the classic English ghost story.

THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
by William James
The most interesting thing about religion: not whether it's true, but what it feels like, explored by a psychologist of great intelligence and sympathy.

FINN FAMILY MOOMINTROLL
by Tove Jansson
The delight of the Moomin world always trembles on the brink of melancholy; its subtle and fascinating atmosphere is a triumph of the storyteller's art.

KIM
by Rudyard Kipling
A story about a boy in India, who ... But no summary can do this marvellous, rich and unforgettable novel anything like justice.

THE MARQUISE OF O
by Heinrich Von Kleist
A very strange writer: intense almost to the point of madness, but what a penetrating mind, and what sharpness and clarity of vision.

A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS
by David Lindsay
As literature, this is tosh. Nevertheless, it's a work of epic moral grandeur, and one of the very few fantasies to do something truly original and important with the genre.

THE MAGIC PUDDING
by Norman Lindsay
The best thing yet to come out of Australia, and that includes Shane Warne. If anyone can read this without laughing, heaven help them.

LAVENDER'S BLUE
edited by Kathleen Lines
Every household needs a collection of nursery rhymes, which are the foundation of every kind of success with language. This has always been my favourite.

VENICE FOR PLEASURE
by J.G. Links
Whether in prospect or in retrospect, or there in one's hands in the city itself, the most informative and engaging guide to the past and present of Venice.

THE CALL OF CTHULHU
by H.P. Lovecraft
Preposterous, overblown, absurd in every way - yet with an originality that looks more powerful and convincing each time I dip into it.

BUDDENBROOKS
by Thomas Mann
How could a 25-year-old know so much, and write so perceptively? The first of Mann's great novels, and still astonishing today.

THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
by Robert Musil
The greatest condition-of-Europe novel, but much more than a profound diagnosis - it's enormously funny, apart from anything else. I never tire of it.

THE BEST OF MYLES
by Flann O'Brien
The best collection of the funniest newspaper columns ever written. It's as simple as that. After this, read his The Third Policeman.

THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS
by Elaine Pagels
We live in Gnostic times. This is a clear account of the strange and intoxicating religion that nearly supplanted orthodox Christianity in its earliest years.

THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND
by Roger Penrose
This is an age of great writing about science, and here is some of the finest. Penrose's knowledge is awe-inspiring in its reach and completeness.

THE BOOK OF DISQUIET
by Fernando Pessoa
The very book to read when you wake at 3am and can't get back to sleep - mysteries, misgivings, fears and dreams and wonderment. Like nothing else.

WOLF SOLENT
by John Cowper Powys
Powys evoked the English landscape with an almost sexual intensity. Hardy comes to mind, but a Hardy drunk and feverish with mystical exuberance.

EXERCISES IN STYLE
by Raymond Queneau
A pointless anecdote told in 99 different ways, or a work of genius in a brilliant translation by Barbara Wright. In fact it's both. Endlessly fascinating and very funny.

WE DIDN'T MEAN TO GO TO SEA
by Arthur Ransome
Ransome never strayed beyond the realistic, but what an exciting story this is: danger, courage, skilful seamanship, and a real respect for his young protagonists.

DUINO ELEGIES
by Rainer Maria Rilke
The deepest mysteries of existence embodied in the most delicate and precise images. For me, the greatest poetry of the 20th century.

SELECTED WRITINGS
by John Ruskin
The best way to read this great and life-enhancing writer is in short and well-chosen excerpts. Earnest, unfashionable, no doubt; but profoundly wise and truthful.

THE COMPLETE MAUS
by Art Spiegelman
The complete answer to all those who still doubt the potential of comics. Spiegelman is a genius, and no other form could have told this story so well.

WALLACE STEVENS (POET TO POET)
edited by John Burnside
Wallace Stevens speaks more interestingly, and more memorably, about the things that matter most to me than any other poet. I can't imagine being without his work.

THE NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM
by David Thomson
Opinionated, slightly cranky, vastly entertaining, endlessly informative. Of all the reference books I have, this is always the hardest to put down.

COUNTRY OF THE BLIND AND OTHER SELECTED STORIES
by H.G. Wells
In these short stories we can feel a whole genre just beginning to spread its wings, and test its strength, and take to the air.

MOLESWORTH
by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
As any fule kno, this is the best marriage of writer and illustrator since ... well, since William Blake, really. Still funny after 50 years.

SUMMER LIGHTNING
by P.G. Wodehouse
Wodehouse had the extraordinary ability to evoke innocence without being in the least boring, all in a prose style that lightens the spirits like champagne.

THE ART OF MEMORY
by Frances A. Yates
Yates re-imagined the whole intellectual world of the Renaissance, and laid bare the odd and secret beliefs buried in the foundations of the times we still live in today.

Powys evoked the English landscape with an almost sexual intensity.

it's not in the slightest bit covert.

quite a lot of this was on my formative-years reading list. might even be able to vote. hard to look beyond arthur ransome for personal reasons, but so much here is fantastic, mind-exploding stuff for the book-hungry thirteen year-old

see, there's something that makes me a little bit uneasy about this list. It sits in things like:

Read one of these stories every day and your narrative taste will be purified, strengthened and refreshed.

and

The complete answer to all those who still doubt the potential of comics.

it exudes a pomposity of 'taste', and that sits above some other factors - Wolf Solent is typical of a particular type of literature where 'heavily sexualised'='women as things to project on to'. A number of these have some slightly dubious political undercurrents, or overtones - the racism in Lovecraft, the colonial superstructure of Kim (and specifically Kim, it doesn't apply across Kipling by any means).

Yeah, read a lot of Ransome when I was young, and WDMTGTS was probably my favourite. the least sheltered I guess.

That doesn't make them indefensible choices by any means - Lovecraft and Kipling would certainly be on any list that I put together - but as 'taste dictation' it has a somewhat musty, high culture, feeling.

there is something a little offputting about some of the writeups, yes

a sort of corny positivism that dawkins & his fans have triple-boosted of late

Sorry forgot to add the G in WM.

Looking more into this and the Queneau choice (one that I have read) is slightly bizarre (I mean of all French fiction pick this) but works. Its too self-consciously non-canon yet works with Molesworth.

xps

ha, i did wonder what you meant.

Kolymsky Heights is v good, but as 'best thriller evah' choice slightly odd.

I don't hear that much from Pullmann (not that I look too closely), plus I've never read his fiction. Hard to avoid Dawkins (damn u ilx). But yes the aggressive secularism is an undercurrent.

Like that his reading is wide and varied in different ways, in his own preoccupations but also somewhat outside it too. He likes things that don't fit a taste, e.g. "as literature this is tosh" but hey I like it. It doesn't look like he is forcing it for the most part.

Geographically its poor - never mind that there aren't books by African or Japanese authors. There is almost nothing by women. Little around politics. But other things are interesting in it. For a book which does quite a bit with magic I quite like how there isn't any Latin American magical realism. A travel guide on Venice instead.

choosing A Perfect Spy over Tinker, Tailor is a shibboleth of sorts for me - tho it's been a long while since i've read it i seem to recall it was more serious, more literary than TTSS. Not that TTSS isn't serious, but the twin investigative lines of Merlin and the Mole (<---next PP novel title), are thrilling and unmatched elsewhere in what he wrote.

i believe philip roth called perfect spy "the finest english novel since the war." i like spy who came in from the cold more than either

until seeing Kolymsky Heights here, i'd forgotten i was going to read Lionel Davidson's The Rose of Tibet - thanks for reminding me! (i'm enjoying it).

Cool. Had a look at a few wikis of ppl I didn't know at all about, such as Lionel Davidson.

Maybe Pullmann did force it on the comic front. We may need a comic stan to tell. When this list doesn't feel quite right it bugs me when I should dismissive and forget about it.

it's bugging me as well! lionel davidson is a good writer i think, tho i remember finding the chelsea murders unsatisfactory, damned if i can remember why now.

Hergé was the best at everything: plots, draughtsmanship, jokes, characterisation, timing - he could do the lot, and this is his best book.

He could do the lot - with the help of a whole studio full of assistants, by the time of Castafiore Emerald.

"Epic moral grandeur"? Guess I better read it again: just remember Lindsay (like M.P. Sheil) as an eccentrically gifted, eccentrically driven imagist (not really literary "tosh," in terms of giving me a vision of his vision). But he was as freaked out by the existence of women as Shiel was by non-Caucasians (pix I've seem of him don't nec. look all that Aryan). And Pullman's defense of Lovecraft looks pretty defensive too, to put it politely ("convincing"? roffl!)

Great stuff. Did want to see some of the titles I know almost nothing about being posted on.

It was silly to do this as a POLL. I was always going for MwQ or Duino.. (w/Book of Disquiet as an inspired outsider). This morning it bugs me that he placed Mann in there. Anything apart from Death in Venice is NOT in the canon dude! The early 20th century German canon is Musil-Kafka-Rilke, get 1x memo already!

Slightly uninspiring list for me - I feel like I know where I stand with too much of it - like it's someone with pretty similar taste to me, and I'm sure we'd enjoy talking about books, but I want a few more surprises. Picked Best of Myles.

Voted for Ransome but plenty of good choices. Pullmann is a really good writer.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

My copy of Wolf Solent, which I have yet to read, has some truly incredible blurbs on it.

really? creditable or (as I'm imagining) faintly alarming?

Creditable. Some of the same people as here, although different quotes: http://www.powys-lannion.net/Powys/CecilWoolf/apprec.htm

it's good, powerful even (I really like it), but surely too odd to approach even second tier canon. feels like that praise (and the people doing the praising) indicate it's a piece of literature which seemed like it was central to literature at the time but looks like a funny branch now (I think funny branchness is an appealing thing fwiw).

the Powys brothers generally seem like fanclub material rather than undergrad essentials. (Lawrence is as close as a rabbit gets to a diamond here prob)

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/28/philip-pullman-william-blake-and-me

^ Another excuse for a day out in Oxford in late winter.