Stephen Pollard is a fucking snob.
I don't care how expert he is in whatever area of Important Grownup Hey I Said This Is Important Will You Kids Sit Still and Listen to Me? Hey! Hey! Where Do You Think You Are Going?! shit he writes about. Anyone who has the gall to tell people that they should "be ashamed of themselves" for reading a so-called "children's book" in public has invalidated themselves in my eyes as anyone whose opinion on any subject I should care about. So he "worries" for adults who read books he doesn't approve of, does he? Paternalistic swot.
Yes I am just a little sick of these people.
By the way, here's my short review of the Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials, which is another one Rowling/Tolkien-haters are always flogging as an example of "all fantasy should be written this way": first book good, second book eh, third book sucked and blowed. I promise to give a longer review later.
One last thing: apparently Pollard went to see The Two Towers having fuckall idea that it had to do with elves, "monsters" and other sorts of fantasy things, and stomped out in a huff because he expected to see, I don't know, something like The Brothers Karamazov, or maybe the latest Jean-Luc Godard brow-crinkler. (And he also says he "avoided the first movie" -- so apparently he had no idea that he was seeing part two of a continuous film. I can't even begin to understand the sort of mental reasoning behind this.) You know, there's this thing I do before I go see a movie: I read up on it to get a kind of idea of what I am to see. And if I don't, I don't get mad because I didn't see what I thought I would see. But what do I know. I read "children's books," I can't understand all that grownup stuff.
Scroll down this page for some feedback on this entry. Sample:
I wasn't going to jump in on this, really I wasn't, but it struck me that this piece was a glaring example of the fallacy of the excluded middle. (David Gillies.)
So, reading Potter and Pullman, watching Lord of The Rings etc is infantile, less than adult and part of a general downgrading of the cultural life of the country [...] Watching Spurs, on the other hand, isn't. (John Durkin.)
(Link to Natalie Solent's post, where she was much, much too nice to the guy, found via Sasha and Andrew's Round Table.)
Posted by Andrea Harris at July 8, 2003 09:47 PM...stomped out in a huff because he expected to see, I don't know, something like The Brothers Karamazov, or maybe the latest Jean-Luc Godard brow-crinkler.
HA!
Posted by: Paul Jané at July 8, 2003 at 11:04 PM"Yes I am just a little sick of these people. "
Or just sick of these little people.
Posted by: Russell at July 8, 2003 at 11:46 PMStars. I’m speechless. I can only quote C.S. Lewis: “Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
Posted by: Shaela Scanlon at July 9, 2003 at 02:01 AMSomething in Pollard's argument smacks of jealousy to me. Is he a failed novelist?
D.
June: slamming children's books. July: hawking toys.
Not exactly a marvel of self-consistency, this Pollard.
Posted by: Greg at July 9, 2003 at 09:39 AMSinner! Go watch five back-to-back showings of Ma Nuit Chez Maud, Persona, and Yojimbo (action films are okay if they are foreign) and recite the names of five auteur directors (using the Cahiers du Cinema ranking).
Posted by: Andrea Harris at July 9, 2003 at 12:07 PMI confess, I own Lilo and Stitch, Monsters Inc. and the complete Toy Story special collection.
Posted by: Ith at July 9, 2003 at 03:30 PMWell said, Andrea. I can't stand those "if only all the other teeny-weeny folks were as sophisticated and intellegent as myself...heaven forbid, they actually seek to be entertained by entertainment..." types.
Posted by: Emily at July 9, 2003 at 03:43 PMHmmm.
So, if I'm reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," would that be equally bad?
Hey, what about movies? The wife and I went to see "Finding Nemo." Is that somehow degrading? Does watching "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" ALSO offend Pollard's sensibilities? How about "Snow White"? All of our friends really liked "Shrek." YMMV, but are they all somehow to be cast out into the darkness?
[Repost of an earlier comment, at the commenter's request.-- Admin]
Posted by: Dean Cheng at July 9, 2003 at 04:44 PM