Pullman on Audio: Our Verdict!

(0:05 - 0:28) Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and today I am delighted to be able to welcome back Andrew Head, who is a wonderful writer from Australia who I met through one of our courses. (0:28 - 0:46) Andrew is also blind, so he is my go-to person to find out about audiobooks, of which he is a massive consumer. Though, Andrew, I'm also a massive consumer, so I'm sort of nicking at your heels of my enthusiasm for that format. Good, good. (0:46 - 1:00) So welcome. Andrew, we have been saving this up, so you've listened to quite a few things. So we're going to start with your reaction to what you've listened to in the Philip Pullman Dark Materials trilogy. (1:01 - 1:56) And the one that you have listened to is the BBC audio from 2005, which has Philip Pullman himself as a narrator with other actors taking parts in the story. Tell us about what this is like to listen to and what you got from it. Well, it's quite different. It's sort of a halfway, you know, you have with this particular format, it's a bit of a combination of most audiobooks are narrated by one person doing voices. But then there's kind of with this one, because Philip Pullman's narrating it, and then every time the characters turn to speak, it's voiced by a different actor for each character. So it's sort of a cross between, you know, a regular audiobook and a dramatisation. (1:57 - 2:16) And I thought it was unique, because there doesn't seem to be too many of them around in my experience. And I quite liked it. I felt it brought the story to life a little bit in a different way, because each character had a distinctive voice that wasn't the narrator's. (2:17 - 2:44) And I guess it helps the fact that you've got the author reading the book and we aren't actors, but we are probably decent narrators of our own work when it's a third person narrative. So how did you find hearing Philip Pullman's own version of his words? Did that bring something extra to it? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's always exciting when an author reads their own work. (2:45 - 3:20) And if there was anything and any names that being a fantasy, a bit different to regular names of people in places, you've got how the author intended them to be pronounced, which is always nice. I mean, quite often from what I've heard and I imagine, you know, the narrator would ask the author for pronunciations and, you know, the author sends in written or audio of how they want things to be pronounced. But, yeah, it was really nice that, you know, the author himself got to, was reading it and you could hear how everything should be pronounced properly. (3:21 - 4:00) Mind you, I've just had, what happens is the publisher sends you a sort of list of, it's like a template document and it says, are there any accents that we should, you know, that the narrator needs to be aware of? Or are there any special pronunciations, just like you said? And I've just been listening to the audio book of one of my Regency crime stories called The Wordsworth Key and he's set in the Lake District. And there's something which I didn't think to tell them, which I've just noticed. I think I may be the only person. (4:01 - 4:20) A couple of people in the Lake District will recognize one of the mistakes. She also says there's a poet from the 18th century called Cooper, but actually it's spelled C-O-W-P-E-R. So lots of people call him Cowper, but actually he's a Cooper. (4:21 - 4:33) And I thought, oh, I should have put a template document. I should have said, but I just didn't think there's such tiny, tiny details. So we can all get it wrong, you know, but most people, they won't notice and it won't matter. (4:34 - 5:15) So how do they do the transition? So I'm thinking about reading a piece of text. So if Philip Pullman cues a Lyra speech, does he also add the she said, or is that just understood? Is it like edited for this medium? No, he does a straight read. Oh, okay. That's fascinating. Okay, so we were talking about how Philip Pullman offers, there's three different ways of approaching Philip Pullman on audio. One is this one, your one, which is like in the middle, the 2005 one. (5:15 - 5:37) Then we've got sort of going on full-on dramatization. You've got a BBC radio dramatization, which appears on Audible from 2021, which will be like a stage version. And it will be abridged and very different, more like listening to a radio play, or that's what you're doing. (5:37 - 6:04) You're listening to a radio play. But you also, going back to a more traditional format, you've got straightforward readings. And the one that is reading the Northern Lights at the moment is Ruth Wilson, who is the actress who played Mrs Cooper, Coulter, sorry, Mrs Coulter in the BBC serial. (6:04 - 6:37) So she's transferred from that to read the book. So when you've got the choice, Andrew, what do you get from each of those different, as a blind or partially sighted person, what do the three different versions of books offer you? And have you got a preference of which one you go to? That's a bit of a pose then, because while you're thinking, I will say, personally, I don't like sort of semi-dramatized adaptations. I'd be interested to see if the BBC did a better job of it. (6:37 - 7:01) But I've seen recently there's a trend because of, I don't know if it's AI voices or something, but there is a trend now for a book that I have purchased with a traditional narrator to be sort of tried to be sold to me again with people taking voices. And I thought, oh, what's this like? Is it much better? It's not abridged. It sounds like what you're describing. (7:02 - 7:23) But I found I really hated the sort of foley artist, low level element of dramatization that goes on and other voices coming in. So typically it would be so-and-so, I was running to, you know, arrest the bad guy or whatever it is. And you hear footsteps in the background. (7:23 - 7:35) Somebody rang on the doorbell, ding dong. And I'm thinking, no, I can imagine it, you know, get out of my head. I wanted it simplified just with the voice reading it to me because that's how it was written. (7:35 - 7:56) And so I would prefer either the book or the stage play, the midget play, rather than the middle suede, which is what you were listening to. How about you? Well, the Philip Pullman with the full cast narration, there's no sound effects. Okay. (7:57 - 8:00) In the background. That sounds better. Yeah. (8:00 - 8:31) So it's Philip Pullman and the full cast, but there's music sort of at the beginning and the end and, you know, with each chapter, but there's no ongoing sound effects. I've not heard too many of those with sound effects in the background books you're describing except with kids' books, when I was listening to the books when I was a kid. And I didn't mind it when I was a kid. (8:31 - 8:49) I thought that, you know, it added some depth. But I can understand as well, you know, yes, we have our imagination and I can understand from your perspective that you'd feel that that would be, you know, taken away a bit. We can't use our imagination as much because the sounds are there. (8:49 - 8:56) But I wouldn't be opposed if I heard another book like that. Okay. Well, perhaps we should do one where we compare. (8:56 - 8:59) Yeah, we should. Yeah, let me know. Yeah. (8:59 - 9:17) I mean, so we've been talking about the Philip Pullman. Should we also consider here, I don't know if you've done any watching of the films or the TV serials with audio description. Have you tried that at all? I watched the films years ago. (9:18 - 9:32) I think they called it the Golden Compass. That was the only one that was released as far as I know. The only thing I remember is Ian McKellen did a brilliant job as one of the characters, the bear, Yorick Birnison. (9:32 - 10:04) And the TV show, well, that's why I reread His Dark Materials recently because my sister had been watching the TV show. You know, she really enjoyed it, especially being a vet nurse and having dogs as pets and just loving animals. I think she was really drawn to the, you know, the idea in the book that the people, a lot of the characters have demons, they call them, which are human, sorry, which are souls that are part of them. (10:05 - 10:31) Not sure if I'm explaining that very well. But, yeah, no, so I think, yeah, my sister really liked that aspect and I reread the books first to remind myself of the story and then intended to watch the TV show because I wanted to see how well they did the books justice. But I found it is audio described, but I haven't got around to watching it yet. (10:32 - 10:40) OK, well, that's it. So that is another, you know, keen on maximum accessibility. So we've got, let's go down our pecking order. (10:40 - 11:07) We've got films and TV series audio described. We've got radio plays which are staged, which I think it sounds quite, that's quite a good one as well because that's obviously done with the mind to just an aural experience. Then we've got your Halfway House where you get, the value seems to me in that one is you've got Philip Pullman's voice and it's not too intrusive. (11:07 - 11:17) And then you've got the straightforward reading by an excellent actress. So I think you've got lots of good choices there. So that's accessing Philip Pullman. (11:17 - 11:44) What about the actual content of the books itself? Because, you know, did you enjoy when you came back to it? No, this was a reminder. I'd read it as a child quite a few times years ago. So coming back now, what did you think of the story? Did you enjoy it? Did you think it bore up on a second reading? Yes. (11:45 - 12:09) There's many, many aspects of the story I like. I might say some people won't agree with me and there's probably people that when I say what I'm going to say, people listening will probably shout at me and go, how dare you, from the comfort of their homes or wherever they're listening. But, yeah, as a child I really enjoyed it. (12:09 - 13:10) And then as I got a bit older, into a teenager, and spoiler alert for anyone that hasn't read it, there's probably going to be some spoilers. But as I became a teenager and got deeper into my Christian faith and I was rereading the series, and there's one part where as a child you don't really realise some aspects, but in the third book there's a conversation between two characters, no, three characters, and one of them is talking about the enemy in the story is God basically and one of them's talking about they stopped believing in God. And it was at that point that I just didn't like the story as much and as a kid, you know, as a 10, 11-year-old, I guess a lot of things go over your head. (13:11 - 13:40) But, yeah, when I was sort of 14, 15, rereading it, and in the first two books I think it's a lot less clear that the enemy is God and then in the third book it's, yeah, during that conversation it suddenly all comes together and it's, oh, okay. Now, you know, we're all entitled to our own opinions and views, et cetera, but I didn't think it was appropriate in a kid's book for the enemy to be God. Maybe it's encouraging. (13:40 - 14:14) Well, my thoughts back then were, when I first heard it as a teenager when I realised was, you know, maybe it's encouraging children to stop being Christians or turn away from God or whatever. Maybe that isn't the point, but that's how I saw it back then. After hearing, you know, doing some research and sort of hearing that, you know, Philip Pullman wanted to dig up C.S. Lewis' corpse and throw stones at him, I was like, oh, well, eh, doesn't seem like a very nice chap, unfortunately. (14:14 - 14:37) So I think, well, look, okay, it's an interesting concept to have God as the enemy and I enjoyed the reread, the recent reread. You know, I enjoyed the characters, the settings, the overall story. Did the enemy have to be God, though? I think it would have been a lot better if the enemy wasn't God and if it was, yeah. (14:38 - 14:50) Okay, so can I come in there just because Philip Pullman lives in my city and he's a charming man. He's really lovely. I've campaigned with him for trying to save Christian libraries. (14:51 - 15:14) So rest assured, I thought that was a rhetorical flourish. And also I think that he would probably say that he feels uncomfortable and alienated by reading fantasies that are informed by a strong faith the other way. So he doesn't like Narnia, for example. (15:15 - 15:24) So each to their own. It's perfectly permissible to have a world in which God is the enemy. That's fine. (15:25 - 15:35) And there is no censorship. If people want that who are humanists or atheists or whatever, that is absolutely fine. You know, I think we shouldn't. (15:35 - 15:54) You can say I can imagine a version of this book which didn't alienate me, which I would have enjoyed. And that's great. I would say, looking at it from a sort of literary critic point of view, that actually I think his problem is that the charm runs out. (15:55 - 16:12) So it's really charming, the first book, even though it's difficult and really, really problem, you know, the children, scary stuff. It's sort of childcatcher stuff, isn't it? Like in the scary stuff of Chichi Chichi Bang Bang. It's got that element of horror in it. (16:13 - 16:22) But it still manages to be charming, largely powered by the idea of the demon, as you said. Yeah. The second one, you've got this wonderful new character who comes in, who adds his own. (16:22 - 16:54) And he's our real world connection, our world connection. I think the problem about the third one, which is maybe why you felt really unpersuaded by it and worried by it, I think it gets a bit too much like I have a – I want to exercise – I want to express my annoyance with literature at this point, which has Milton and C.S. Lewis and everybody who's had God. And God is actually, in my view, if there is a God, he's a monster. (16:55 - 17:13) You know, that sort of Stephen Fry version as well. And I think because that message is very foregrounded, it sits alongside a whole kind of journey into the underworld. And you end up thinking, well, what is the theology? And there's also a prophecy, which is fulfilled. (17:13 - 17:29) So you think, well, what is the overarching universe behind this? And I was left feeling a bit – I didn't know where I was. I wasn't convinced by the fantasy. I'd lost faith in the fantasy by the time I got to book three, whereas I love book one, really enjoyed book two. (17:29 - 17:44) And book three for me is – I did like Mary Malone. I like that character. But I found the – it was a shame he felt he had to fight that battle with God because it was the weaker part of it. (17:45 - 17:51) He could have got the message across in other ways, I felt. So I'm with you on that. But for a different reason, more of a craft one. (17:52 - 18:10) But I do think I would absolutely underline it's perfectly, absolutely fine to go and write your fantasy from an atheistic viewpoint or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Jewish or whatever it is that is your thing. Perfectly fine. But just make sure you do it well, I suppose. (18:10 - 18:28) Yes, yes. I think – I know I'm coming across very biased here, and I acknowledge that. But, yeah, no, I think – I hope I put across that if that's what he wanted to do, that was all right. (18:28 - 18:54) But, you know, yeah, my view is that that's why I didn't like it. Yeah, so that's the sort of – we recognise that's a subjective taste element there. I would just like to also, while we're talking about Philip Pullman, before we move on to other audiobooks, just mention that, of course, he's been working on the Book of Dust series, which is his latest one. (18:54 - 19:07) And I think there's about to be the third in the series come out pretty much now. That's read by Martin Sheen. Martin Sheen is an excellent actor, very good voice. (19:07 - 19:22) I would say that I enjoyed listening to the first of the Belle Sauvage, the first of them, partly because it's set in my city and my city is flooded. That's fun to think about what that would mean. But I wasn't gripped. (19:23 - 19:49) I wasn't the character. So you've got baby Lyra and a boy who's rescuing her and a sort of barmaid servant character who I didn't warm to. And there was a deliberate attempt to make the nuns at the convent where Lyra is being raised nice, but they were all so dim. (19:51 - 20:22) So going from the sort of let's take on religion, this is a sort of, here's my slightly more conciliatory, but they're all so stupid. It was also a bit of an insult. But anyway, there you go. But that wasn't why. I just thought it was funny rather than I found the river journey in it a bit too long and didn't quite hold my attention. So I need to go back and actually read the others in the series because I need to give him another chance. (20:23 - 20:44) So I would say that my favourite Philip Pullman books are the first one in the Northern Lights series and The Firework Maker's Daughter. So I do love his writing when it hits the spot for me. But there are some places in his writing which are misses, which may be to do with that I don't share his faith, because it is a kind of faith he has. (20:45 - 20:51) So I feel a bit outside of that. But there is an audience for that. So, you know, fine. (20:52 - 21:05) So sometimes I find technically I don't quite go with him on some of his choices. So anyway, but Martin Sheen is a good narrator. So not a bad way of accessing those books. (21:06 - 21:22) If you feel like giving it a go, Andrew, I'd recommend it. Okay. Well, that wasn't – I did see on Audible there's also a sequel book to his Dark Materials about Lyra and Panther Lyman. (21:22 - 21:26) I haven't read it. I'm not sure if I will. I'm not sure if I will. (21:27 - 22:12) It might appeal, though, because it is a short story, I think, or a novella, and it is about the demon relationship, which I think is the nicest, the classiest thing in Philip Pullman. Have you read that one? Have I? I can't remember if I have. So I should need to reread it. I thought I had. But I'm glad you have met Philip Pullman. He's lovely. Really lovely. And were able to provide that other perspective. The other super cool thing about Philip Pullman, and I am his fan club, even if I don't agree, is he taught me a lot about how to read aloud from your own work. (22:12 - 22:29) So I was standing behind him, and he was reading a bit from the beginning of the Northern Lights at this Save the Libraries event. And I noticed that he had crossed out various filler words to make a more dramatic reading. And I thought, gosh, that's such a good idea. (22:29 - 22:37) You don't have to read every single word that's in the published book. You just read this excerpt. You re-edit it for reading aloud. (22:38 - 22:42) I thought, thank you, Philip. That's such a good tip. So I'm really grateful to him. (22:44 - 22:55) And underlining that I admire him, the things that I've been picking at are just being a critic. It's not anything personal or anything like that. I think he's great. (22:55 - 23:25) And I think if I was ever invited to, if I was ever in an opportunity to meet him, especially having read his books, even though I have met like and dislike of them, I certainly wouldn't turn the opportunity down to meet him. Yeah, I think there is also a kind of virulent Christian out there who will attack him for putting his views in his book. So he does feel under assault. (23:26 - 23:35) And as we see in current times, we need to agree, disagree, need to disagree. I almost got that wrong. We need to disagree agreeably. (23:36 - 24:02) So if you don't like his theology, you think, OK, I don't like your theology, but what's good about your story? And that's my attitude to anyone. I try to have anyone who I disagree with, of which there are, of course, loads of people. But with him, don't set yourself up as someone who should tell them how they should think, because that's not your job. (24:02 - 24:10) You just say, oh, that's interesting. I feel on the outside of that worldview. I'm on the outside of, say, like Stephen Fry's worldview. (24:11 - 24:22) Yeah. But I'm interested in what you've got to say, because I learn more by listening to different views. So that's where I would go with Philip Pullman, because he's a great storyteller. (24:23 - 24:39) So thank you very much, Andrew, for being with us to discuss the audio versions of Philip Pullman. And I look very much to talking to you next about biographies of Tolkien, Lewis and the Inklings. Thank you for being with us. (24:40 - 24:52) Thank you, Julia. I look forward to continuing to discuss with you as well. Thanks for listening to MythMakers Podcast. (24:53 - 25:08) Brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. Visit OxfordCentreForFantasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses, in-person stays in Oxford, plus visit our shop for great gifts. (25:09 - 25:14) Tell a friend and subscribe, wherever you find your favourite podcasts worldwide.