https://amazingstories.com/2018/12/book-review-daemon-voices-essays-on-storytelling-by-philip-pullman/

If Pullman was a painter or sculptor, this collection would be the equivalent of a retrospective show. It was nice to see his ouvre and even more so to see him comment on these pieces.

I picked up an ARC from Netgalley. I have to say it was a great decision on my part to request this. As is the case with all collections of essays, some of them are fantastic and some are just OK. Part of the issue here is that some of these are his speeches and so, because he gave them years apart and often times in different countries, they get a bit repetitive. Still, the insight here is wonderful. If you are a writer or a reader, so pretty much everyone on good reads, you will find something to love in this collection. Even if you are one of those people who hates Pullman because someone else told you what his books are about, even you will find something to like here.

As with any collection of writing, some pieces resonated with me and some didn't. I loved reading Pullman, whose works I've loved since childhood, talk about his experience with writing. Fans of Golden Compass trilogy and writers alike will enjoy seeing his perspectives. The essays that were of my interests were really engaging, the ones that weren't I tended to pass over. Overall, a good read! Thanks to NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review!

This title in included in my San Francisco Chron Monthly Listen In column for October. My star rating is indicative of nothing. I five star all books, as netgalley doesn’t allow me to submit a link without a star rating. I did enjoy this very much though.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This collection of essays and talks by Philip Pullman really inspired me as a reader, writer, and an educator. It gives a lot of insight into Pullman's thoughts and ideas on literature and his stories. After reading through this collection, I find myself being more intentional about how I recommend books to my students and how I evaluate the stories I read.

#DaemonVoices #NetGalley

It’s likely many people will be grateful for this nonfiction installment from Philip Pullman, an author who knows his craft and is willing to pull back the curtain to show you how a wizard makes the literary magic happen. Almost anyone interested in writing could benefit from Pullman’s commentary, which covers a wide range of material. This collection hosts 32 of Pullman’s speeches and occasional writings (e.g., introductions to special volumes by other authors), covering topics from Bach to bibliomancy.

Naturally, Pullman presses the same buttons on occasion. As with comics prone to recite the joke that always works, Pullman sometimes relies on the same insight across a number of essays. All this is acknowledged up front in the introduction. These repetitions are not faults but revelations about Pullman’s craft. They constitute part of the reason Pullman is asked to speak at literary festivals and conferences. Capitalists would call these repetitions part of his brand.

While Pullman is beloved in many circles, he is also invited to speak to audiences who hardly share his views. This is especially the case on occasions when he is asked to speak about religion. Pullman doesn’t pull any punches with the priestly classes:

"As soon as you realise that God doesn’t exist, the same sort of thing happens to all those doctrines such as atonement, the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, original sin, the Trinity, justification by faith, prevenient grace, and so on. Cobwebs, dusty bits of rag, frail scraps of faded cloth: they hide nothing, they decorate nothing, and for me they mean nothing."

If such a statement rankles your soul, you might want to withhold complete condemnation of Pullman until you can enjoy, for instance, how he describes his own position on Milton’s Paradise Lost:

"There is an old story about a bibulous, semi-literate aging country squire sometime in the eighteenth century, sitting by his fireside listening to Paradise Lost being read aloud. He’s never read it himself; he doesn’t know the story at all; but as he sits there, perhaps with a pint of port at his side and with a gouty foot propped up on a stool, he finds himself transfixed.
Suddenly he bangs the arm of his chair, and exclaims, ‘By God! I know not what the outcome may be, but this Lucifer is a damned fine fellow, and I hope he may win!’"

Pullman says he shares the view of the arm-banging squire. Pullman isn’t out to skewer opponents in a deadpan fashion. He sprinkles in flourishes and entertainments. Pullman also chooses fascinating allies like Heinrich von Kleist.

If you pick up this book for the storytelling advice, Pullman speaks plainly most of the time. He is not a self-aggrandizing author, which is the overriding characteristic of celebrities in our time. He says things like: “I am the servant of the story.” Pullman is humble about what he does. He tries to stay out of the way, and let the narrative happen, take its own course. “A storyteller should be invisible, as far as I’m concerned, and the best way to make sure of that is to make the story itself so interesting that the teller just … disappears.”

In large works like novels, Pullman urges readers not to expect perfection. Mistakes will happen. Dull passages will creep in. His solution for budding writers? “Try to do better next time.” Pullman is keenly aware that readers lack staying power, unless the author can tease them along or wow them continually. Writers shouldn’t expect infinite patient from readers, if the writer drifts into rabbit holes out of authorial curiosity alone.

"If you leave the path, the readers put down the book. Suddenly they remember that phone call they had to make; they look in the paper to see what’s on TV; they think a cup of coffee would be nice, and when they’re in the kitchen they look out the window and see that the hedge they meant to trim yesterday, or they switch on the radio to hear the football commentary, or when they get the milk out of the fridge, they remember they had to get some cheese for supper"

In a context which the reader might abandon the novel at any moment, what does Pullman offer as countervailing advice? “The way to tell a story is to say what happened, and then shut up.”

Pullman has little patience for novelistic bricolage or the hyper-self-awareness of postmodernism. He passes judgments, and asserts them forcefully: “There isn’t a character in the whole of The Lord of the Rings who has a tenth of the complexity, the interest, the sheer fascination, of even a fairly minor character from Middlemarch.

Pullman is attuned to seasoned ways of storytelling. “I think that fairy tales are ways of telling us true things without labouring the point. They begin in delight, and they end in truth. But if you start with what you think is truth, you’ll seldom end up with delight — it doesn’t work that way round. You have to start with fun.” So, he will have characters in one of his pieces visit a grotto. Why? “I like the word grotto,” he writes. Pullman has fun with his writing, and in several places in this collection he is able to convey the wonders and delights of literature. Here’s an example with examples:

"Stories give delight. That the point I began with, and I’ll come back to it to finish up: they beguile. They bewitch, they enchant, they cast a spell, they enthral; they hold children from their play, and old men from the chimney corner. The desire to know what happened next, or whodunit, or how Odysseus and his men escaped from the Cyclops’ cave, or what is the meaning of the enigmatic words “The Speckled Band” or “The Black Spot,” or whether the single man in possession of a good fortune will, as we all hope, succeed in marrying Elizabeth Bennet, or what Mr. Bumble will say when Oliver Twist asks for more, or what Achilles will do now that Hector has killed Patroclus."

In short, you’ll want to add this Pullman book to your reference collection. It’s one for the ages. Pullman advises everyone to treasure reference books. “We should acquire as many reference books as we have space for — old and out-of-date ones as well as new ones — and make a habit of using them, and take pride in getting things right.”

Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman is a thoughtfully put together collection of essays, speeches, and thoughts on writing and influence. Pullman discusses the works that influenced his own writing and teaching, and also how stories affect the lives of people-especially children, The Topic Finder at the beginning of the book is a very nice touch.
Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

DAEMON VOICES by Philip Pullman is a brand new collection of his essays on storytelling, the oldest of which is from 1997. I actually enjoyed the introduction from Simon Mason who described the process of choosing which essays to include and then explained his decision to arrange them more thematically than chronologically. I also loved Mason's reference to the raven – "that picker of bits and pieces here and there." Then came the Pullman essays, some of which seemed to drag on and on. Others conveyed Pullman's anti-religion perspective. Perhaps these essays worked as the speeches some of them were originally intended to be, but they could/should have perhaps been shortened or even updated for this format. The concept for this book, with sections on reading, on story in culture, on the practice of writing and so forth, had the potential to be a rich source of short pieces for our Junior and Senior English classes, but the actual text was disappointing. 2.5 stars, but fans of Pullman's writing clearly feel differently in their online reviews.

Fans of Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy will enjoy Daemon Voices, a compilation of the author's speeches, essays, and articles on the craft of storytelling. Pullman's work spans over 20 years and covers wide-ranging themes like education, religion, and science. At the heart of each speech or essay, though, are Pullman's thoughts on stories - how we tell them and how they shape us. You need not be a Pullman aficionado to enjoy this collection - fans of literature, writing, and storytelling will enjoy it immensely, too. This is best read in multiple sittings; the selections can get a bit repetitive if read in one go.

"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."

While yes, I'd prefer a new fiction book by Pullman, one can't look a gift horse in the mouth that in under a year we're getting a new Pullman book...

In this brilliant collection of essays, talks and articles, Phillip Pullman addresses the psychology of readers, writers, stories and storytelling in a fascinating and readable style. This volume should be in the permanent collection of all lovers of writing and reading, and would make an excellent springboard for discussion in any writing classroom setting.

I haven't read any of Pullman's fictional works, so I came to this without any preconceived notions. I'm sure that those who are familiar with his work will be even more delighted to get insight into the author's mind and process.

This compilation would have been much less effective without the masterful touch of Simon Mason, who organized these 30+ pieces into a readable and coherently connected work. My writer's heart and mind felt incredibly well-watered after this reading. Highly recommend.

This is a nice collection of essays, speeches, commentaries and articles on writing and writers. Pullman has an elegant voice and the pieces were well-written and interesting, although after a while they started to feel overly similar... Taken as a collection to read in a single sitting, I found it a bit much. Read in smaller bites, it was much more enjoyable.

If you've loved any of Pullman's books, this is a great companion piece. If you love reading about the writing process, this is also the book for you. I all into both camps so I really enjoyed reading Daemon Voices. One caveat is that the essays are from a 20 year span and that is a looooong time in anyone's life and you go through a lot of the same thought processes and sometimes come out with different opinions. So prepare yourself for some repetition and some contradictions - as can only be expected over 20 years of personal growth.

There are other great authors that has done essays on this type of topic that I have enjoyed. I really like this collection. There maybe a few things in this book that make me stop and think about more than just writing but society in general. Then I need to step back and remember this man is not American he is British and comes from a different society then I. After I stop looking at some of this in an American way I found that I loved his lectures and essays more. Again, he has pulled me in and I enjoyed the adventure.

This is a fantastic collection of essays from one of my very favorite authors. As with all of his other works, his writing is nearly flawless. The essays are thoughtful and thought-provoking, and I'd recommend this to fans and soon-to-be fans alike.

A great collection of essays from a fantastic author. I'm sure my patrons will love this collection too.