Sir Philip Pullman, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, I think, this is a paraphrase, that a children's book that's only enjoyed by children is a bad book.

Do you agree with that?

Yes, I do. I disagree with Lewis about a lot of things, but I do agree with him when he says, talk sensible things and says sensible things about books.

One other sensible thing he said was the difference between books that have an atmosphere and books that don't.

And he referred to Hiawaffe.

He likes Hiawaffe because of the atmosphere of the woods and the Indian names and all that stuff that comes with it.

Whereas other people he's spoken to don't enjoy that. They're only interested in the plot.

So Lewis is enjoying and rightly and referring to something that I would now refer to as being in the

rosefield, which I could explain a little bit more later.

It's the atmosphere around things, the context of things, what they suggest, what they

remind us of, what they, the things that they are like, that sort of thing. So Lewis was right about that.

Yeah, I think it's perfectly true. If only children enjoy it, yes, it's not a very good book

that adults would probably enjoy. Yes, Lewis says a waltz that can only be enjoyed while waltzing

is a bad waltz. I think he sort of

uses that by means of analogy, although probably an imperfect analogy for what we're talking about

here. Well, there are all sorts of ways of enjoying a waltz. There are ways of becoming obsessed

by waltz. I've got a tune that goes from my head all the time when I'm worried about

something. It's a sort of El Zat's Viennese Walsh. Not a real one. It's just the most banal series of bars of music, but it's a waltz and it's a Viennese waltz, and I can't get rid of the bloody thing. Yeah. So, you know, there are ways of experiencing waltzes that Don't involve dancing at all.

But it's a way. So, you know, there are ways of experiencing waltzes that just don't involve dancing at all.

But it's the what you're the same year.

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