Editing Philip Pullman (section)

=== Views on fantasy ===
In a lecture at the [[Sea of Faith]] conference, Pullman said that "the writers we call the greatest of all – [[William Shakespeare| Shakespeare]], [[Leo Tolstoy| Tolstoy]], [[Marcel Proust| Proust]], [[George Eliot]] herself, are those who have created the most lifelike simulacra of real human beings in real human situations. In fact the more profound and powerful the imagination, the closer to reality are the forms it dreams up." He said he wanted to write fantasy realistically, or write fantastic characters with psychological depth: "Because when I thought about it, there was no reason why fantasy shouldn't be realistic, in a psychological sense – and it was the lack of that sort of realism that I objected to in the work of the big [[J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien]] and all the little Tolkiens." He says [[David Lindsay (novelist)|David Lindsay]]'s ''[[A Voyage to Arcturus]]'' "shows that fantasy is capable of saying big and important things."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pullman |first=Philip |title=Writing Fantasy Realistically |url=https://www.sofn.org.uk/conferences/pullman2002.html}}</ref> He concludes that fantasy is "a great vehicle when it serves the purposes of realism, and a lot of old cobblers when it doesn't." Pullman says that he sees ''His Dark Materials'' as "stark realism", not fantasy.<ref>{{cite web |last=Pullman |first=Philip |title=The Great Escape |url=http://iai.tv/video/the-great-escape |access-date=21 January 2014}}</ref> He has praised fantasy authors like [[Alan Garner]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Flood |first=Alison |date=April 24, 2015 |title=Fantasy Author Alan Garner celebrated in new tribute, First Light |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/24/fantasy-author-alan-garner-celebrated-in-new-tribute-first-light}}</ref>