*flails about*

Oh yes. I am a happy girl.

I started teaching today- only had 10 out 23 students- WTF? Oh well. We'll see how that goes.

BUT! As some of you heard via my flaily text messages, ANOTHER ONE OF MY ARTICLES IS GOING TO BE PUBLISHED!

And yes, it's on Harry Potter. Muahahahahaha.


*Dances happily*

So, I've just read Philip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy. I had read The Golden Compass / Northern Lights a few months ago but finished off the last two books in the last 2 days.

*unsettled, puzzled frowny face*

Yes, there's my official response. Yes, my primary PhD area is Children's Lit but this one- I don't know. I'm not impressed. I'm not moved. In fact the last book made my head hurt. Perhaps this is heresy (now wouldn't that be ironic?), but I really didn't like them. And yes, I'm familiar with Paradise Lost and with Blake, without which I really don't know if most people would follow the intricacies of the story.

And I say all of this with the whole caveat of initial reading- but, I think it's ridiculously heavy-handed, bulky, and confusing for most readers. It was not a pleasant read, though I enjoyed the daemons and the interactions there. But there were large portions that seemed unnecessary and lead to nothing. I found it a very unvisual book, despite the variety of settings and people. Maybe it's the flaw of the academic with a book as dense in intertexuality and allusion and Grand Design as this, but I rarely found myself pulled along in the story, so caught up was I on the details, who each of these people was, what they meant, etc. It's almost as if Pullman had made them more different (in names for example) it would have been easier and more pleasurable rather than feeling like a weighty task of "Yes, Alright. I understand who this is supposed to be now get on with it."

I am- at this stage- reminded about the main flaw in academia: we tend to forget how to play. How just to enjoy what we do, what we read, how we teach. God it's like conferences where everyone is in the same black suit, reading papers outloud to an audience of similiarly dressed people who clearly learn best by reading. For godsake, people! Enjoy your lives. Enjoy the interactions with each other. Teach me. Don't read to me like a droid without every making eye contact. If you're going to drone on and on, just give me a copy of your paper so I can go read it on my own with a nice cup of tea and some biscuits. Thank god there are people out there like unsymbolic who know how to balance sharing ideas with engaging the audience.

/Nerdy ramble

So yes, F-list! While I drag myself off to read 27 articles of literary criticism on the Dark Materials Trilogy, what are YOUR opinions on the Pullman books?