I’m currently reading The Book of Dust: Volume Three, Philip Pullman’s third and final instalment in his Lyra Chronicles. This blog is not a review – there won’t be any spoilers for those who haven’t read it yet, nor am I going to try to explain it for anyone who isn’t familiar with the books. The purpose of writing this blog is to describe an experience I had this morning when I read something in that book, something so profound and overwhelming that I had to stop reading and find words for the emotions that flooded over me and left me a sobbing mess on the sofa.
It took me completely by surprise. Novels can often reduce me to tears – the death of a character, a union of true love, a quest fulfilled – but that’s not what moved me this morning. It was a conversation about the imagination. The character Lyra is discussing what imagination is with someone who insists that it is just making things up. But when Lyra describes what it means to her, she says this:
I used to tell lies till I realised how much other people were hurt when they found I wasn’t telling the truth. But I shaped them like stories. I timed the telling so that it satisfied something, some taste or other, some aesthetic sense, some sort of need. I prepared the way for a turn in the story, so that it seemed inevitable when it came even though you didn’t anticipate it. I gave the characters enough depth to seem real while they were in front of you, and for a while afterwards. I put in just the right amount of detail so the person listening could see what I was describing in their mind’s eye without being overwhelmed by things that didn’t matter. I was making art, you see, a cheap and shoddy sort maybe, for a purpose that might be banal or underhand or greedy, but it was art. I was shaping things. Making patterns. I was just like someone thousands of years ago sitting under a tree carving criss-cross lines on a stick with a sharp bit of flint because they enjoyed looking at it. Or another one cutting holes in a bone and blowing through it and making different notes because they enjoyed hearing it. Or beating a hollow log for people to dance to. Rhythms and patterns and… and resemblances. And things that lead from them, like metaphors.
As I read this, I knew that Pullman is describing what writing is like for him. I recognised it because this is what writing is like for me. Pullman is a writer I admire immensely, and in the past, I have drunk in anything he has written about writing, not just looking for advice and encouragement, but because it chimed so much with my own personal experience of writing. And this paragraph has the same quality. Although this passage is part of a story, the words of a fictional character, it felt personal to Pullman, describing his own strongest beliefs. And it matches so perfectly with how it feels when I am writing that it felt like Pullman, through Lyra, was describing how my imagination works.
But why am I sharing this? Not because I’m claiming any resemblance with Pullman; of course not, he’s one of the greatest writers of our time and I’m just a scribbler at home. But that’s the point – it doesn’t matter. I write not just because I enjoy doing it but because human beings have this need to create. Art matters, no matter who is doing it. Pictures, stories, music, acting – humans need this. We once used art to explain the world – creation stories, images on cave walls, music to stir emotions, life acted out. The title of this post references the story in the Bible, where Saul of Tarsus experienced an encounter with Jesus and instantly converted his beliefs – it is a metaphor for how humans can experience understanding in such a sudden and unexpected way that it feels supernatural, even though it also the most natural thing in the world. Science and technology might have successfully replaced metaphors with truth and accuracy, but they never replaced the need to create. Humans still feel compelled to make art, in so many forms. Is this what makes us human – the ability to both understand science and need art? I hope so.
My daughter is an artist. She is a painter, and her work is full of her imagination. When people ask what she is going to do when she graduates with her art degree, I tell them she wants to be an artist. Not an illustrator, or a graphic designer with some practical role, but just an artist, painting the images she sees in her head. It’s hard to make people see the purpose of that – especially in a world where science and technology are so highly prized. But to anyone who wants to be an artist, or indeed a musician, an actor or a dancer, or, of course, a writer, I say there is a need. Humans need art. If Philip Pullman hadn’t felt compelled to write, the world wouldn’t have had his incredible novels, and I wouldn’t have had his words to share with you.
The painting that goes with this post was done by my daughter. It is a portrait of me, and the bird on my hand is a jay – because of Jay, a character I created for my YA novel. In the world of Philip Pullman, it could be my daemon, because Jay is part of me, straight from my imagination. In Pullman’s world, daemons are what make people human. In our world, it is art. For me, it is creating characters like Jay. For my daughter, it comes from a paintbrush. I truly believe that everybody has this in them.
Life goes on, and so does art. Even though I had to stop reading and wipe my eyes to get dressed and put dirty clothes in the washing machine, the profundity of these words is still moving me. It’s what compels me to write this post, rambling and unnecessarily emotional as it is, just to explain a personal feeling. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. I just know I need to say it. To say, to shout, to sing out loud even – if you want to create art, DO IT! Everybody can.
M J Schofield 