“An impressive job of publicising his work”

Yesterday I quoted from a recent BBC conversation with British fabulist G. P. Taylor. Back in September 2008 Taylor complained to the Telegraph that the BBC was refusing to book him on its interview shows. ”Once they had decided that I was promoting Christianity in my books I found the door firmly shut,” he claimed.

A BCC spokesman responded, “There is no truth in the claim that there is a BBC ban on G P Taylor.” Jonathan Wynne-Jones, the paper’s religious affairs correspondent, did some additional reporting on Taylor’s claim:

Internal correspondence between BBC staff, obtained by the author under the Freedom of Information Act, shows unease about the writer, although the documents question his character rather than his faith.

One email was sent by Christine Morgan, BBC radio’s executive producer of religion. She wrote: “He does an impressive job of publicising his work but he is not universally admired... He has a very high opinion of his own books and in recent press releases there were constant references to him being the writer to take on J K Rowling’s mantle. There’s something quite revealing about their tone."

In that same Telegraph article Taylor dropped another pronouncement:

He says that once his present series of books is complete, he will write under another name and employ an actor to do any public appearances, in an attempt to stop his work being “discriminated” against.

About a year later, in October 2009, told the Yorkshire Post that he was “ending his career prematurely to look after his 11 year-old daughter,” who was unfortunately having to deal with a chronic illness.

Since 2009 Taylor has published four books, including a new series. In addition to speaking to the BBC in favor of age labels on children’s books, he’s currently involved in some movie adaptations.

The Film Stage reports that European producers are casting for Taylor’s Mariah Mundi, with Martin Sheen among the actors considered. “Notarius316” commented on that story:

I think Sheen will be amazing and having read the full story in Variety I am looking forward to the Mariah film.

Interestingly, Notarius316’s Disqus profile indicates he/she also commented on a blog posting about the career of G. P. Taylor:

would you like a chat so I can tell you what went on with Putnam?
GP
email me via my website ...

An impressive job, indeed.

G. P. Taylor, Vampire Hunter

A posting at Bookshelves of Doom made me look again at the intellectual peregrinations of G. P. Taylor. In 2005 he told the BBC about how concerns about children being attracted to the occult prompted him to write and publish Shadowmancer for children:

“If it wasn’t true that books like Harry Potter, Philip Pullman’s work, Buffy the Vampire Slayer weren’t leading children to the occult, why did the Pagan federation appoint a youth officer to deal with all the inquires from children who wanted to become witches? . . . look in the Buffy books or in some other witch books out at the moment and some of it is genuine stuff…”

For his British audience Taylor rejected the idea that he wrote “to promote the Christian agenda.” However, in 2007 he offered the American public an open letter that claimed:

The reason why I wrote the book and all the others in the series was because of one man and the damage that his books were likely to do to the Christian Church.

I dissected the discrepancies in that letter back here.

Already, however, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series was becoming a huge hit, with the Breaking Dawn volume winning a 2008 British Book Award. So what did Taylor do? As he just told the BBC:

“I was going to a lot of schools, I was seeing what kids were writing, and I just thought this is what children want to read,” he said. “So I wrote a book about vampires which was very dark and scary and realistic…”

So much for worries about Buffy! Within a span of ten months in 2010-11 Taylor published three volumes of the Vampyre Labyrinth series.

In October 2010, in the midst of his marketing campaign, Taylor told the Yorkshire Post that he was “having to keep the details of a nationwide school tour secret, for fear of lobbying from Evangelical Christians”:

“I am about to embark on a school tour and talk to 20,000 children. . . . I am concerned that there is a real threat that some people may start lobbying bookshops and schools to stop children buying the book. . . . The book has recently earned the title ‘the most terrifying children’s book ever written’. Many people are saying that it is far too frightening and that children should be warned before opening the pages.”

In fact, a search for the phrase “most terrifying children’s book ever written” doesn’t produce a single Google hit independent of this article. But that complaint about “a real threat” from religious zealots gained Taylor a little press in the UK. (He had made similar claims of “an insidious hate campaign” four years before, except then the undocumented threat was supposedly from anti-religious zealots.)

A year and a half later, and the latest voice to join the chorus against the Vampyre Labyrinth books is—oh, come on, you saw this coming!—G. P. Taylor. In his recent BBC conversation he declared:

“I wrote the Vampyre Labyrinth, it came out, I hadn’t really read it when I wrote the book, and people who were reading it and reviewing it were saying this is the most frightening thing that has ever been written for kids,” said Taylor. ”I have changed my mind: I think children’s literature has gone too far.”

So G. P. Taylor has now come out against a book that he himself wrote. But didn’t really read. Because it went too far. Or so he’s been told. And he’s happy to use the radio to proclaim his own book as “the most frightening thing that has ever been written for kids.” While also positioning himself as a proponent of traditional values.

The Clerical Strain in British Children's Literature

While in London last summer, I visited the Science Museum's exhibit on British technological progress in the 1950s and 1960s, which was "branded" with the characters of the Dan Dare comics series.

I didn't think the exhibit made a good case for linking the comics' sci-fi with the creation of radios only slightly larger than shoeboxes, even if they did appear at the same time. But I suppose the familiar faces made the exhibit more interesting for people who grew up reading Dan Dare.

The thought that struck me hardest as I learned about Eagle, the magazine that published that comic, is how the line of British fantastic literature for children includes several notable books from clergymen:

• Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland. (I should note that Dodgson worked as a college professor rather than a minister, but he was ordained.)
• George McDonald, author of The Light Princess and The Princess and the Goblin and a Congregationalist minister.
  
• Marcus Morris, vicar and founder of Eagle magazine.
• W. V. Awdry, vicar and creator of Thomas the Tank Engine.
• G. P. Taylor, retired vicar, author of Shadowmancer and numerous press releases.

In addition, these British authors of Very Important children's novels also published widely read books of theology:

• Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown's Schooldays.
• C. S. Lewis, author of the Narnia series.

And there might be more.

I can't think of any equivalents in American children's literature. I'm not thinking about people who wrote religious books for captive young audiences, but authors who were either religious professionals or respected theologians and also created books that a significant number of children from other faiths have enjoyed.

G. P. Taylor Seizes His Opportunities

In the fall of 2007, G. P. Taylor, author of Shadowmancer and less successful books, issued an open letter to his American fans on the dire threat of the Golden Compass movie. Here's one example of it being spread around the 'net.

Taylor stated:

The reason why I wrote the book [Shadowmancer] and all the others in the series was because of one man and the damage that his books were likely to do to the Christian Church.

Almost two years earlier, I’d been at home in the vicarage, reading a copy of The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. I’d heard a great deal about the book. Newspapers and literary critics praised it. Christian groups wanted to burn it. I wanted to know what all the commotion was about.

Fifty pages into this award-winning, best-selling book for children twelve and up, here’s what I’d learned: God is a liar. God is senile. God is the enemy of humanity. I started to get mad.

Pullman’s book reworks Milton’s Paradise Lost so that Satan’s side are the heroes. Early on in the book, two rebel angels spill God’s great “secret”:

'The Authority, God the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adoni, the King, the Father, the Almighty – those were the names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves – the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are … He told all who came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie.' - (so Pullman said - notice he doesn't give God any other name such as Allah or Shiva - I wonder why?)

It's curious that Taylor described the book as The Golden Compass rather than using its British title, Northern Lights. It's even more curious that he'd told the same story about reading Pullman's later book in that series, The Amber Spyglass. Indeed, Taylor's description of the book, with its "fifty pages in" and "two rebel angels," doesn't fit The Golden Compass at all. And does anyone recall that "Christian groups wanted to burn" The Golden Compass in 2000-01 (the period Taylor was describing)?

It's also notable that back in 2004, when there was no brouhaha in America over the Golden Compass movie but Harry Potter movies were already big, the Los Angeles Times reported: "Taylor has said that he was moved to start writing out of his concern that the dark powers in [J. K.] Rowling’s Potter books are given too much weight." That article contained no mention of Pullman. This 2003 Guardian article is likewise silent on Taylor writing in reply to Pullman.

Indeed, there seems to be a general discrepancy between what Taylor has told the American press and public and what he said to reporters in his British home. Taylor painted a different picture of how religion flavored his writing in an interview with the BBC about four years ago:

Andyc: Does being a vicar help you to be a good writer?

G.P. Taylor: No, because everybody thinks the book is a Christian book, so I have to explain it is not. Just because I'm a vicar does not mean I have to write a Christian book. It has hindered me in a way, because some of the reviewers look for things which are not there.

Even this article on his website written by the author of his autobiography portrays Taylor quite differently from his open letter to Americans:

Taylor says that Christian themes in his works are a natural part of the writing process. “If I was a Buddhist,” he says, “my books would be influenced by Buddhism.”

Taylor takes exception with the suggestion that his novels are “Christian books,” meant as entertainment for true believers. And he doesn’t want to “brainwash” anyone with Christianity. Instead, he wants to engage readers in a game of “what if.” “I want my readers to think, ‘what if there’s another force that lies beyond death?’ It’s trying to get people to open their minds, to think the impossible thing.

In contrast, the open letter shows little interest in open minds. It does, however, urge everyone to buy G. P. Taylor's books.

Taylor has a new book series out, adding some comics to his usual prose. The BuddyHollywood.com announcement of that series contains this paragraph:

Taylor surmises this interest in his works is due to the film success of another English children’s author. “I was talking to some kids at a school and this guy shows up in a very old tweed suit. He sat at the back of the room and looked very musingly at me all the way through [my presentation.] I thought, What’s going on here? Is he one of the teachers or what? He turned out to be an Oxford don. He said, 'I’ve heard all about you. We think you’re the new C.S. Lewis.' I thought, Poor old one! (laughs). Then he went off and wrote a thesis about G.P. Taylor being the new C.S. Lewis; when that went out, that was it.”

An "Oxford don" speaking in the first person plural ("We think...")? That's almost a laying on of hands. Yet before that press release, Taylor's website credited the "new C. S. Lewis" meme to the BBC, a Korean broadcasting service, and unspecified American news media. No Oxford dons were ever mentioned.

Taylor has displayed some ambivalence toward that comparison. Once he vowed to stop writing the Shadowmancer series because of being "branded as the new CS Lewis." Yet oddly enough, he keeps using that phrase in press releases and interviews. If you Google "G. P. Taylor" and "new C. S. Lewis," most of the hits are on his own websites or in material issued by him, his publicists, and his publishers. And toward the end of his open letter, Taylor proudly claimed that his books "have earned me the title of 'The new CS Lewis.'"

Finally, here's an update on Taylor's magical form of aging. His MySpace page, updated as recently as this month, describes him as 43 years old. He was also 43 five years ago in the Guardian. In 2006 Spero News reported both that he was born in 1958 and that he was 42 years old in 2002. The LA Times agrees with the former date, reporting Taylor as age 46 in 2004. Taylor himself told the Independent that he had been five years old in 1963. In that case, since MySpace was founded in late 2003, Taylor was 45 years old at the earliest moment he could join.

G. P. Taylor Loses a Wheel

The Rev. G. P. Taylor, author of Shadowmancer and other books, has gotten a bit of press (in the Christian market, at least) from telling the Daily Star tabloid that enemies sabotaged his car. (Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom for the first alert.) As passed on by the Spero News and the Assist News Service, Taylor reported that a wheel had come off his chauffeured car, but he and his driver escaped injury.

Taylor told the tabloid's eager reporter: "I'm the victim of an insidious hate campaign among some adults who don’t like my books. These people flood the web with messages inciting harm towards me and one recent posting read 'should we want to kill him.'" Yet despite the news that such messages have "flooded the web," the only example of that quoted phrase that Google could find for me was this very news article. Taylor's near-death experience on the highway is apparently too big to confine to his blog, or even to mention there.

A year ago, folks may recall, Taylor got "120 pupils aged 12 and 13" riled up by using words like "bum, bogey, fart and pee" in an author talk at a comprehensive school. Teachers stopped him halfway through, and someone--who could it have been?--called the papers. Of course, Taylor would have had no reason to expect that using such vocabulary in a school presentation would have caused a fuss, would he?

At that time Taylor told the Guardian that he was merely speaking up for such fine literature as, well, Shadowmancer. He agreed that he'd "said television was 'crap' compared with books," and that "Harry Potter was not 'the only gay in the village'," a catch-phrase from the Little Britain television show. (This was reported around the world as if Taylor had said Harry Potter is gay; English may be our universal language now, but that doesn't mean anyone understands the English.)

Why do I get the feeling that Taylor manufactures his own publicity? Consider this article that appears on Taylor's webpages and nowhere else:

New York Times best selling author GP Taylor has vowed that he will be giving up writing his Shadowmancer series of books as he has been branded as the new CS Lewis. . . .

Due to the popularity of the Shadowmancer series, it is believed that Taylor has been offered 'an incredible' deal to produce a sequel for the millions of fans worldwide by Faber and Faber. It is also believed Lawyers have also gagged Taylor from revealing the amount of the contract in public as it is said to be a 'never before done deal'.

What journalist ferreted out all that secret information about Taylor's book deals (and edited it so poorly)? None other than Bob Smietana, Taylor's collaborator on his autobiography. Yes, Taylor is one of those rare authors who need a ghost writer for their own memoirs.

And speaking of that autobiography, perhaps it will clear up how old Taylor is. This Spero News review of the book reports he was born in 1958. Yet in 2003 he told the Guardian that he was 43, and the recent Daily Star article apparently states that three years later Taylor is only 44.