A recent fulmination in the Daily Mail called up unexpected memories of Mrs Doyle quoting an imaginary bonkbuster on Father Ted. "Then there's the bad f-word. Worse than 'feck'," she explained. "F you and your effing wife, I'll stick this effing pitchfork up your hole."
Lord knows what Mrs Doyle would have made of the prequel to His Dark Materials. "Philip Pullman litters new children's book with swear words," the Mail bellowed. "Contains the f-word, bloody, b*****ks and b*****ds throughout the new book." That's the bad f-word. You know? Worse than feck.
Those words do appear in Pullman's excellent La Belle Sauvage. In the 17 years since the publication of The Amber Spyglass, the last novel in the His Dark Materials trilogy, the author has grown into a man the Mail loves to hate. Pullman, a social liberal whose books are suspicious of organised religion, found himself pushed to the front of various progressive campaigns. He opposed Pope Benedict being granted a state visit. He condemned the Labour government for its cuts on civil liberties.
Eventually, Pullman received the ultimate badge of disapproval: thundering denunciation from Peter Hitchens. Beneath a headline calling Pullman "the most dangerous author in Britain", the Mail on Sunday columnist addressed the war on God. "In his worlds the church is wicked, cruel and child-hating; priests are sinister, murderous or drunk. Political correctness creeps in leadenly," he wrote.
Poisoned Monster Munch
Never mind the antitheism. “Bad language” remains, for such commissars, the worst imaginable offence. For all the various indignities The Sex Pistols inflicted on middle England, nothing caused quite such fluster as their saying the bad f-word (worse than “feck”) on teatime television.
Pullman deserved particular opprobrium because he writes “children’s books”. He may as well be standing outside the school gate with poisoned Monster Munch. Right?
It's not as simple as that. Pullman can fairly describe himself as somebody who writes books that children read. But he has managed the rare feat of transcending the usual categories. Rightly or wrongly the Harry Potter novels are seen as young adult novels that old adults often read. Pullman stands with Tolkien as a writer who belongs in both the adult and the children's section. Richard Adams managed something similar with Watership Down.
None of this quibbling matters to those who have made up their minds. "By his own admission, some of novelist Philip Pullman's fans are as young as seven," the Mail wrote. That "by his own admission" is doing a lot of work in the sentence. There is a sense that Pullman is confessing to something awful. It is mildly surprising that they didn't replace the word "fans" with "victims". The most dangerous author in Britain likes to get at them early.
Why are the Mail's readers still worrying about the bad f-word (worse than feck)? Their children walk streets where it is uttered daily. They are exposed to unimaginably profane material on the internet. The Earth is boiling up. A dangerous lunatic has become president of the United States. Yet it is worth fretting about children reading a word in a good place that they will inevitably encounter in many bad places.
Germanic euphemism
Is it not better to become used to the bad f-word (worse than feck) through imaginatively written literature than through bellowed insults in the playground? Will one Germanic euphemism for copulation turn children into drug addicts, sex offenders or worse? Might it make them subscribers to the New Statesman?
Let me belatedly lay cards on the table. Decent people are expected to tiptoe around the subject of children and swearing. In this newspaper, pastoral columns concerning the glance Maisie gave me in O’Loughlan’s bower rarely stoop to what we in Belfast once called “shipyard language”. The proper tone is one of responsible acceptance. Right? Young people are (shakes head sadly) going to hear these words. We must (steeples fingers in that annoying reasonable-priest gesture) shepherd them lovingly through those painful first engagements. Am I still on the right track?
Bad-f-word-that for a game of bastard soldiers. Swearing is one of life's most joyous and creative releases. Everyday language is plainchant and madrigal. Profane speech is free jazz and death metal. No, Martin Scorsese didn't have to use the dreaded word a record 857 times in Wolf of Wall Street. He chose to because it's appropriate, invigorating and fun. Swearing is big and clever. It can also be creative. Just look at what Armando Iannucci does with the familiar words in The Death of Stalin.
We need more cursing in children's books. Tell Harry Potter where to shove his broomstick. Hey Mr McGregor, stop mincing your words with Peter Rabbit. Who's talking to you, Eeyore, you miserable sod?
God, I feel so alive.
