{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2678",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2678,
    "subject": "Pullman gleanings from the Web",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-06-13T09:48:23+00:00",
    "last": "2001-06-13T09:48:23+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0474@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-06-13T09:48:23+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Pullman gleanings from the Web",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I was doing some surfing the other day, and I came across a number of sites,\nand pieces of info, of interest to fans of HDM.\n\n1) There is a site -- http://www.geocities.com/torre_degli_angeli/pics.htm\n-- with reproductions of the drawings Pullman did for the British editions\nof Northern Lights (the British title of GC) & SK.  They're very good:\nsimple, even stark, black & white drawings, much like woodcuts; nothing like\nstereotypical children's book or fantasy illustrations.  For Hester fans,\nthe illustration for chapter 14 of SK is a drawing of Hester.\n\nThere are also reproductions of the chapter epigraphs for AS, presumably in\ntheir original typography: they're shown as if carved in stone, with words &\nphrases of varying size.  Personally I would have preferred more drawings,\nand the epigraphs printed like ordinary epigraphs.\n\nThis site has other goodies, including a message board (seemingly inhabited\nmainly by adolescents), interviews (some of them incomplete), and links to\nthree brief supplemental thingies Pullman did for the official website,\nwhich don't provide any crucial information, but are interesting.  There's a\ncollection of unreliable lore on angels; a brief essay on how to read the\nalethiometer, including a table of all the symbols with their primary\nmeanings and a couple secondary meanings each; and a very brief piece on the\nhistory of the alethiometer (fans of Crowley will be pleased to learn that\nit was invented in Prague in the reign of Rudolf II, and used images from\nthe theater of memory).\n\n2) There is a good discussion of AS at\nhttp://booktalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?128 at 138.UAehbrYW3km^0@.ee7bf2f\n\nThe participants seem to be mainly, or all, adult, and most seem to agree\nthat AS is disappointing compared to the first two books.\n\n3) In an interview with Amazon (for URL see below) in which, among other\nthings, Pullman explains what HDM owes to Kleist's \"On the Marionette\nTheater (and incidentally makes clear why Lyra stopped being able to read\nthe alethiometer).  It also contains another bit of external, indirect\nevidence that Lyra and Will do have sex:\n\nAmazon.com: There are also times, just for a second--or a sentence--when\nyou're appealing a little bit more to your adult readers. For instance in\nThe Subtle Knife, when the queen of the Latvian witches flies off to Lord\nAsriel's, you write: \"Every witch there knew what had happened next, and\nneither Will nor Lyra dreamed of it. So Ruta Skadi had no need to tell.\"\n\nPullman: I don't spell it out. It's there if you can see it, but it's not\nthere if you can't. One of the gratifying things about this series is that\nI've had a lot of response from adults as well as from children.\n\nSo Pullman acknowledges that he sometimes writes in the dual mode I argued\nhe employed for the Lyra-and-Will love scenes.  (One might argue that this\nquote also shows that Lyra and Will were not thinking of sex, but this scene\ncomes before Mary \"tempts\" them.)\n\n4) Here's the real shocker: Pullman likes Terry Brooks!  If you find this\nincredible, here's the quote:\n\n\"I don't read fantasy; I have read Tolkien, but many years ago, and I've\nnever read McCaffrey or L'Engle. I would always much rather read realistic\nfiction. I make an exception for Terry Brooks because of his sheer skill as\na storyteller, which I admire, but most fantasy doesn't nourish in the way\nthat good realistic fiction does.\"\n\nThis is from another Amazon interview.  Both interviews are available at\nhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/170810/103-5385864-6925461\nalong with brief essays by Pullman, Amy Bloom & Margot Livesey.\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}