You Cannot Change What You Are, Only

I Have Maintained A Passionate Interest In Education, Which Leads Me Occasionally To Make Foolish And Ill-considered Remarks Alleging That Not Everything Is Well In Our Schools. My Main Concern Is That An Over-emphasis On Testing And League Tables Has Led To A Lack Of Time And Freedom For A True, Imaginative And Humane Engagement With Literature.

As Jane Austen Might Have Put It: It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged That Young Protagonists In Search Of Adventure Must Ditch Their Parents.

I Don't Expect Christians To See God As A Metaphor, But That's What He Is. Perhaps It Might Be Clearer To Call Him A Character In Fiction, And A Very Interesting One Too: One Of The Greatest And Most Complex Villains Of All - Savage, Petty, Boastful And Jealous, And Yet Capable Of Moments Of Tenderness And Extremes Of Arbitrary Affection - For David, For Example. But He's Not Real, Any More Than Hamlet Or Mr Pickwick Are Real. They Are Real In The Context Of Their Stories, But You Won't Find Them In The Phone Book.

I'm With The Grimms On This: Stories For Young And Old. You Can't Characterize Them Any Better Than That.

Because The Great Thing About Fairy Tales And Folk Tales Is That There Is No Authentic Text. It's Not Like The Text Of Paradise Lost Or James Joyce's Ulysses, And You Have To Adhere To That Exact Text.