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Saturday, September 24, 2005

The Golden Age

What one learns from shoveling out the writing room! Last night I found a scrap of paper with a note about Peter Hitchens' "This is the most dangerous author in Britain," published in January 2002 in The Mail on Sunday. Evidently I read portions of this article to my daughter, who had read and loved the first two volumes of Pullman's His Dark Materials--and who also loved the Narnia books (and the BBC production of the same.)

M., quoting Pullman: "I hate the Narnia books, and I hate them with deep and bitter passion, with their view of childhood as a golden age from which sexuality and adulthood are a falling-away."

R., age 10, astounded at the author's lack of understanding about fallings-away from the desirable condition of a happy childhood: "Well, they are."

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Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.