Daemon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling

by Philip Pullman Narrated by Philip Pullman, Simon Mason

Overview

From the internationally best-selling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, a spellbinding journey into the secrets of his art--the narratives that have shaped his vision, his experience of writing, and the keys to mastering the art of storytelling.

One of the most highly acclaimed and best-selling authors of our time now gives us a book that charts the history of his own enchantment with story--from his own books to those of Blake, Milton, Dickens, and the Brothers Grimm, among others--and delves into the role of story in education, religion, and science. At once personal and wide-ranging, Daemon Voices is both a revelation of the writing mind and the methods of a great contemporary master, and a fascinating exploration of storytelling itself.

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2019 - AudioFile

Sounding erudite and professorial, author Philip Pullman delivers this collection of his nonfiction writings. The tone is apt, as many of these speeches and essays were originally given as lectures at universities or published as introductions to new editions of classic works. Topics range from his own writing process, such as for the His Dark Materials series, to the importance of fairy tales and his thoughts on religion and spirituality. Pullman’s interests are clearly wide ranging, and his enthusiasm for, say, the charms of the illustrations in classics like Arthur Ransome’s SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS and Tove Jansson’s Moomins books invites listeners to want to learn more. It’s a worthwhile listen for insights into the mind of the writer. J.M.D. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - Laura Miller

…like Pullman's own fiction, these essays cast a spell "for the refreshment of the spirit." To read them is to be invigorated by the company of a joyfully wide-ranging, endlessly curious and imaginative mind.

Publishers Weekly

05/28/2018
This collection of 32 talks, published articles, and prefaces written between 1997 and 2014 by children’s writer Pullman (La Belle Sauvage) addresses “the business of the storyteller” with the quiet confidence of a master craftsmen sharing the tricks of his trade. Though Pullman claims no authority beyond knowing “what it feels like to write a story,” the essays delineate and defend the real work of fiction to nourish imagination, shape moral understanding, and, above all, delight. The book progresses from how stories work—“the aim must always be clarity”—to why they matter, along the way peeking into Pullman’s inspirations (notably including William Blake, Robert Burton, John Milton, and the Grimm brothers), pet peeves (“I shall say no more about our current educational system”), and process. Democratic in his philosophy, materialist in his beliefs (“this world is where the things are that matter”), and with a droll humor that occasionally approaches whimsy, Pullman employs a confiding, ruminative tone, a sharply analytical eye, and a vocabulary free of pedantry or cant to insist on the central value of a sense of wonder. The book is a toolbox stacked with generous, sensible advice for writers and thinkers who agree with Pullman that stories “are not luxuries; they’re essential to our wellbeing.” (Sept.)

From the Publisher

These essays cast a spell. . . . To read them is to be invigorated by the company of a joyfully wide-ranging, endlessly curious and imaginative mind.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Inspiration can be hard to come by, but on the pages of this essay collection, you can find it in long, deep, refreshing draughts. . . . The essays brim with joy and curiosity—about literature, storytelling, music, science, the universe, and humanity itself.” —Laura Miller, Slate

"A splendid collection . . . literary insights that will enrich and inspire." —The Wall Street Journal

"[Daemon Voices] reads as if you’re having a highly illuminating conversation with a genius about how the storytelling sausage is made. It’s a portrait of a writer turned inside out, and anyone involved in the same endeavor will feel slightly less insane for having read it.” —Santa Fe New Mexican

"Remarkably astute. . . . A wonderful distillation of decades of writing and thinking about what goes into storytelling. Like his best books, it has a richness of ideas in its wide breadth of topics and illuminating conclusions."—The A. V. Club

"Pullman offers meaty but always lucidly argued ruminations on the nature of story. . . . Infused with abundant wisdom, provocative notions, and illuminating insights." —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"Pullman addresses ‘the business of the storyteller’ with the quiet confidence of a master craftsman sharing the tricks of his trade. . . . The essays delineate and defend the real work of fiction to nourish imagination, shape moral understanding, and, above all, delight. . . . The book is a toolbox stacked with generous, sensible advice.” —Publishers Weekly

MARCH 2019 - AudioFile

Sounding erudite and professorial, author Philip Pullman delivers this collection of his nonfiction writings. The tone is apt, as many of these speeches and essays were originally given as lectures at universities or published as introductions to new editions of classic works. Topics range from his own writing process, such as for the His Dark Materials series, to the importance of fairy tales and his thoughts on religion and spirituality. Pullman’s interests are clearly wide ranging, and his enthusiasm for, say, the charms of the illustrations in classics like Arthur Ransome’s SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS and Tove Jansson’s Moomins books invites listeners to want to learn more. It’s a worthwhile listen for insights into the mind of the writer. J.M.D. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2018-05-09
Reflections both practical and philosophical on the craft and purview of tale telling, from the creator of the His Dark Materials trilogy.Rather than dish out amusing quotes from fan letters or standard-issue author talk, Pullman (La Belle Sauvage, 2017, etc.) offers meaty but always lucidly argued ruminations on the nature of story. He explores folktales and why they endure and matter, parallels and differences between literary and visual arts, and, a central theme in HDM (which is not, he insists, fantasy but "a work of stark realism," daemons and armored bears notwithstanding), the profound conflicts between the reductive, authoritarian Christian "Kingdom" and the freer, more ideologically spacious "Republic of Heaven." Amid animated tributes to Art Spiegelman's Maus and Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, Milton, Blake, the "vast original energy" of Dickens, and others, Pullman draws from the language of subatomic physics to discourse on the "Fundamental Particles of Narrative," each carrying a "metaphorical charge," and how, for writers, each event in a new story creates a "phase space" within which all subsequent ones lurk. This is all saved from earnest or recondite lit-crit not only by the author's evident intelligence and respect for his readers, but also a gift for dandy one-liners: "If you want to write something perfect, go for a haiku"; "No man is a hero to his novelist"; "What you think ‘Little Red Riding Hood' is about when you're six is not what you think it's about when you're forty"; "I strongly approve of original sin." Published or presented between 1997 and 2014 and arranged in loose thematic order, these articles, talks, and introductory essays consistently demonstrate that Pullman—for all that his gaze is avowedly white and male—is as fine a thinker as he is a storyteller. It's almost not fair.A collection of pieces infused with abundant wisdom, provocative notions, and illuminating insights.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172081835
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	09/18/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Magic Carpets
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Daemon Voices"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Philip Pullman.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
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