Philip Pullman on the borderlands of reading

Philip Pullman, author of the fantastic ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy (Lyra? Daemons? Need I say more?) gave a talk for The Open University 40th anniversary lectures on a) the nature of reading, and b) the relationship between the story and its illustration. And guess what? I attended. I’ve interviewed this fantastic writer a few times and always found him to be passionate, fiery, resolute and charming all at the same time and this was exactly how he was when I saw him talk.

The borderlands of reading

Opening his talk, he told the packed audience: “When we read, we enter a borderland – the space that opens up between the private mind of the reader and the book. Parts of the borderland belong to the book, parts are made up by the reader – of their memories of other books, of real people, what they associate with particular words, the reader’s temperament and so on. In other words, no reader will read the same way.” I found this fascinating – and spot on.

He likened it to what is known as ‘liminal states’, the ambiguous conscious state of being on the threshold between two different existential planes. He also referred to John Keats’ notion of negative capability, ‘when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’ (from a letter written to his brothers George and Thomas on the 21 December, 1817).

Pullman then went on to show the audience a series of paintings, for example Gwen John’s ‘Precious Moment With Book’ which demonstrates how the world around you dissolves when reading, the only clear space left between your eyes and the book you’re holding. He also highlighted how the painting shows the unique mixture of relaxation and attentiveness that comes from reading. Another painting he looked at was Casper David Friedrich’s ‘The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’, comparing the way the man depicted in the painting surveys the landscape before him to the way a reader surveys their borderland.

Illustrations in children’s literature

He then went on to focus on illustrations found in children’s literature, expressing his sadness at how it has become unfashionable to illustrate children’s novels because “pictures in book are like a windowsill.” He used examples from Fritz Wegner’s work, admiring the “romantic atmosphere” he created. Pullman also illustrated the charm of more amateurish drawings, such as those by Arthur Ransome and Tove Jansson (Moomins), and recalled how the “scratchy, swift and confident” drawings of Richard Kennedy swept him into foreign lands such as the working class Parisian scenes in Paul Berna’s A Hundred million francs. Away from urban settings, Pullman highlighted how ‘BB’ Denys Watkins-Pitchford depicts the countryside in Brendon Chase who Pullman with an “honesty and passion”. He also praised Rupert the Bear illustrator Alfred Bestall, especially the end pages of each Rupert manual which depict a landscape, which Pullman described as “full of fancy, lightness, delicacy and charm.”

On the other scale, Pullman went on to focus on illustrators where there is no interest in landscape and more a focus on people. For example, the Thomas Henry illustrations in Richard Crompton’s William books, that “scruffy muddy-kneed schoolboy” as Pullman described him where the focus was very much on the people and not on the “generic middle class England.” Same goes for Walter Trier’s illustrations in Emil and the Detectives – “wonderfully fluid and expressive lines but no background.”

In Pullman’s own books, the Folio Society editions of Northern Lights gave Pullman great pleasure. With illustrations by Peter Bailey, the main character in his trilogy, Lyra, is depicted beautifully (pictured). Pullman also gave an insight into his own illustrations. Before Northern Lights, the first in ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy came out, he illustrated the decorative devices at the top of each chapter and had to illustrate them using heavy black and whites to the size of a postage stamp.

Philip Pullman’s website