The Republic of Heaven

Just thought sraffies may be interested in this except from an interview with the great man from the April 2005 issue of Oxfordshire Limited Edition magazine:

"...Another book I remember was a novel called 'A Hundred Million Francs',
by the French author Paul Berna. It was a good story, about a bunch of
children in a dingy suburb of Paris who find a lot of money which has been
hidden by some thieves, and all kinds of adventures follow.
The point about that book for me was that on page 34, there was a drawing of
some of the kids defying the crooks, and I fell in love with the girl in the
drawing.
She was a tough-looking, very French sort of character, with a leather
jacket and socks rolled down to her ankles and blonde hair and black eyes,
and altogether I thought she was the girl for me.
I wouldn't be at all surprised - in fact, now I think about it, it is
obvious - to find that the girl on page 34 of 'A Hundred Million Francs' is
the girl who four decades later turned up in my own book 'Northern Lights',
or 'The Golden Compass', where she was called Lyra."

It is a fun read, and puncuated with pictures of the gang and Marion, their leader, who Philip refers to. I did scan in a picture for the boards ages ago, but I think that post was eaten in one of the crashes. I'll see if I can dig out the scan if you want.

That would be cool.

Cheers Kropotkin!

jst requested it from the library.

Try this, it's the picture Pullman mentions from page 34:

wow, that does resemble the way I imagined Lyra...

scarily so.

i love the description of the socks.

wow, that does resemble the way I imagined Lyra...

scarily so.

'My' Lyra's a tad more chunky but basically very similar, yes.

Thanks 'Dad!

was there anything else new in the interview?

Here's the link, Jess

http://www.thisislimitededition.co.uk/i ... ple&ID=636

thanks chris.

perhaps someone on the main site should post this up for news?

Which has more readers? A Million Francs or HDM?

*Must get the library to that book in*

jst took it out and read it. it was lovely.

the character i think pullman was referring to, marion, is the coolest. she wears a men's jacket cut down to her side, and a grey tutu of a skirt, and she takes in stray dogs and finds them homes... and she's the treasurer of her gang of ragamuffins. she seems a lot nicer than lyra though.