David Levey

“This wild abyss”: The trope of home in Philip Pullman’s his dark materials trilogy

ABSTRACT This article discusses His dark materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, setting his concepts of home, which I regard as bearing a resemblance to Ernst Bloch’s Heimat or homeland, in the context of a 2002 interview with him and against the background of Bloch’s “atheism in Christianity”. I ask whether, against numerous odds, the protagonists Lyra and Will reach home, in Bloch’s understanding, and suggest that Pullman introduces a further dimension. The two characters eventually come to understand that their atoms will be reunited with each other in the universe. To my mind this, not the temporal worlds or even the republic of heaven advocated by Pullman, is the culmination of the trope of home in the series. Such a reunion will constitute their true, spiritual abode. I therefore differ from the broadly Marxist, earthbound and socially directed, perspectives expressed by Bloch and Jack Zipes.

Exploring ideology and language in Paton's Too late the phalarope (1953): A contextual approach

Abstract In this article we explore the relationship between Patons response to ideology, which also reflects that of his own religious convictions, and his conception of human identity in his novel Too late the phalarope (1953), paying attention to some structures of marked syntax in the novel. For its framework of analysis this study employs Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, to establish the relationship between Patons discourse and that of his society. The article, thus, aims to provide both a textual and a contextual view of Patons ideology and his resistance to the hegemonic ideology of his time, through a discussion of the language he uses in the novel.

Could you not write otherwise

ABSTRACT One of the main ‘issues in English Studies in Southern Africa’ has turned on the proper subject-matter and identity of local writers: should they act as recorders of, or protesters and activists against, injustice – or are other topics and methods, perhaps more aesthetic or personal, more appropriate for them? Or does such a debate miss the point? This matter is discussed by means of a brief consideration of Chris Manns poetry between 1977 and 2006 and his use of art and music to accompany it.