The Haunted Storm

by Philip Pullman

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, The Times named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945". In a 2004 BBC poll, he was named the eleventh most influential person in British culture. He was knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to literature.
Northern Lights, the first volume in His Dark Materials, won the 1995 Carnegie Medal of the Library Association as the year's outstanding English-language children's book. For the Carnegie's 70th anniversary, it was named in the top ten by a panel tasked with compiling a shortlist for a public vote for an all-time favourite. It won that public vote and was named all-time "Carnegie of Carnegies" in June 2007. It was filmed under the book's US title, The Golden Compass. In 2003, His Dark Materials trilogy ranked third in the BBC's The Big Read, a poll of 200 top novels voted by the British public.

Reviews

[Lisa of Troy]

Yes, this is the lowest GoodReads rating I have ever seen.

Also, it lead to the discovery of the funniest Wikipedia article:
The Haunted Storm (1972) is the debut novel of English author Philip Pullman. It was a joint winner of the New English Library's Young Writer's Award in 1972. Pullman later distanced himself from the work, saying "it was published by a publisher who didn't realise it wasn't a very good book", and as of 2016, he omits it from his entry in Who's Who.

But.....come on! It is Philip Pullman! And I want to see how his writing has evolved over time. So is there anyone out there who can lend me a copy?

[Mick Bordet · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first book of Philip Pullman's that I have not enjoyed. I would quite happily have abandoned this after the first quarter, but I wanted to see where it went. With hindsight, I didn't need to know.

[itchy · Rating 1 out of 5]

brief synopsis:
Matthew takes on a lover.
In the meantime, somebody gets murdered with no solid suspects.

setting:
Silminster, England
other places in England

named personalities:
Matthew Cortez - a clairvoyant
Elizabeth 'Liz' Cole - Matthew's lover
Peter - someone's cousin whose father was a plumber
Gwen Cole - Liz's mother
Harry Locke - the uncle of Matthew's mother; an Evangelical Christian
Mrs Parrish - Harry's next-door neighbor who looks after him
Peter Parrish - Mrs Parrish's elder son (not the previous peter as far as I know)
Jenny Andrews - a murdered girl whose body was discovered by Peter Parrish
Mrs Andrews - Jenny's mother
Jesus Christ - the central figure of Christianity who said to love one another
John - a saint
Thomas Cole - Elizabeth's vicar father
Miss Harrison - Gwen's acquaintance
Archer - a half-wit, or nearly one; a scrap dealer's mate
Raphael - painter of Madonna
Sophia - a being who had fallen from perfection
Ialdabaoth - Sophia's son; the Demiurge
Mithra - the invincible god
Alan - Matthew's racist older brother
Heath - presumably Edward 'Ted' Heath
Rimbaud - presumably Arthur Rimbaud
Handel - presumably George Frideric Handel
Scriabin - presumably Alexander Scriabin
Prokofiev - presumably Sergei Prokofiev
Chopin - presumably Frédéric Chopin
Robert 'Bob' Parrish - Peter Parrish's brother
Arnold Fox - a coarsely handsome youth with sleek wavy hair
Jim - Archer's acquaintance
Pat Ryder - a Rover-driving producer
Tony - a plump boy of about eighteen
Mr Bellamy - a schoolmaster
Terry - a boy who Matthew confuses with Andy
Andy - a boy who Matthew confuses with Terry
Rosemary - a pale and vacuous girl
Barbara - a red-haired college student
Jillian - a Christian girl
HG Wells - an English writer
TE Hulme - an English poet
Ivan Karamazov - a fictional character with a case against God
Sartre - presumably Jean-Paul Sartre
Gobineau - presumably Arthur de Gobineau
Max Stirner - an author
Nietzsche - presumably Friedrich Nietzsche
Zarathustra - Iranian spiritual leader
Collingwood - a thin and intense middle-aged man
Beethoven - presumably Ludwig van Beethoven
Mozart - presumably Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Berkeley - an Irish bishop
Ourobouros - the worm of the world
Tanguy - a French painter
Odysseus - a Greek king

some ocr errors: extra letters, letter substitutions, numbers instead of letters, misplaced punctuations, unneeded spaces, etc...

construction:
p111: "...I'll give it you back in the morning."

grammar:
p142: This was Fortune Buildings, and Alan opened the door of number 8 and led the way inside.

label:
p164: He went into his bedroom and put on a thick shirt and a dark pullover, a pair of levis, and plimsolls on his feet.

duh?:
p171: There was something so poignant in the way she sat and in the tone of her voice that she cou1dn't help being moved by it; a lump came to his throat, and he felt the desire to take her in his arms and let the boat drift out on to the lake, and to caress her gently; because she was naked--under her clothes, she was naked--that soft white body of hers held all the mysteries in the world in the curves of it and the folds of its flesh... she was impregnated with sweetness: she was angelic, she was more than human; she was the well--

idunnothis:
p180: "...Your only aim is to get this shoddy little party of yours into Parliament, and that's only a cheating cowardly aim, a deliberately shocking aim, a graffiti-on-the-wall clever-clever Dada aim; and so the fundamental thing about you is that all your will's just a cover-up, it's a blind, and underneath it, Alan, you're passive: you've got no will at all, because you've got no vision!"

Okay, so I tortured myself with this piece.
I do that sometimes.
I guess I'm not compatible with English (nor British) writers.
Or maybe I just needed to work extra hard.
I never understood the significance of the title, or even its relevance plot-wise.

[Wilson Laidlaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the point of giving up with this book half way through, which is a first for a Pullman book. Turgid and weird romance between self-indulgent, self-obsessed, unattractive and tedious dramatis personae. I really would not bother with it, especially given the prices being fetched by this now Pullman groupie collectors' item book. Luckily I had an eBook from many years ago, that I never got round to reading.

[Julia Kalb · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the weirdest books I've ever read. There were parts I really did not enjoy at all and then there were parts he described so incredibly that I felt like I was there...
It was quite difficult to read through all the way, though.

[Chad Olson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wonderful idea. Not indicative of the author he would become

[Timo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't keep reading this book. I've read most of Pullman's books and this one was pretty bad. Maybe it got better but I don't think so.

[Jacob Guy Segalov · Rating 2 out of 5]

What? I didn't get it. Love the author, but this one is his weakest.

[Steve Grayston · Rating 1 out of 5]

Virtually unreadable