On a cold, fretful afternoon in early October, 1872, a hansom cab drew up outside the offices of Lockhart and Selby, Shipping Agents, in the financia… - Philip Pullman

The Specters feast as vampires feast on blood, but the Specters’ food is attention. A conscious and informed interest in the world. The immaturity of children is less attractive to them.

They’re often bracketed together, Tolkien and Lewis, which I suppose is fair because they were great friends — both Oxford writers and scholars, both Christians. Tolkien’s work has very little of interest in it to a reader of literature, in my opinion. When I think of literature — Dickens, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad — the great novelists found their subject matter in human nature, emotion, in the ways we relate to each other. If that’s what Tolkien’s up to, he’s left out half of it. The books are wholly male-oriented. The entire question of sexual relationships is omitted.

We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.