Reading The Firework-Maker’s Daughter by Philip Pullman

Listening to ?

I read this before I went on holiday. Holidays, if they are good, have the capacity to bend time, heal the anxieties and mend the frustrations… but they also make me forget some things. I have forgotten who I was listening to at the time I was reading this book.

A few years ago, there was the fizz of excitement around Pullman not dissimilar to Rowling. He is an Oxford graduate, influenced by comics and William Blake, if Wikipedia is to be believed. The His Dark Materials trilogy resulted in a several awards and a Hollywood film. It wasn’t a great film alas, more style over substance, it really shouldn’t have failed…

I had particularly looked for Pullman’s books having read ‘the book he is famous for’. I did enjoy this little book, it was mythological and magical and the characters were memorable. Particularly, a white elephant that could speak… the illustration didn’t quite cut it, back to something truly graphic for my next choice I think. This book was adapted for opera which gives you an idea of the spectacle the book seeks to evoke. I think it needed colour illustrations to match the text, which in fact they might have done in other editions. Onwards…