Fifty Shades of Grey? Try Seventy-Five Shades of Black and White. Philip Pullman Talks Morality and Simplicity in Grimm's Fairy Tales

When I was at Uni we were handed a German language copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales, hot on the heels of having studied Freud, Schnitzler, and other fin-de-siècle psycho-analytic texts from Austria and Germany. The indication was that we should apply some of the interpretative technique communicated by this to the Tales. I find something anachronistic in this method, like applying Marxist theories to medieval lais. Consequently, I was dissatisfied with the Tales because I struggled with the assignment and felt that perhaps I had missed something fundamental because I was trying to make the simple complicated. I had. I had missed the fact that black-and-white morality, although not realistic, is acceptable in fairy tales and I had missed the fact that simple, two-dimensional characters can be a vehicle for narrative excellence.

These are the lessons that Philip Pullman taught us when he spoke at the National Theatre about his new book, which re-tells 75 of the original Tales. Perhaps I should say he re-taught us – whilst the adults, who made up the majority of the audience, asked questions about the modern sanitisation of fairy tales and the necessity of teaching children about real-life morality, a young girl at the front of the audience simply asked why he wanted to write the fairy tales. A simple question which cuts to the heart of the matter. Why did he want to write the fairy tales? Because he likes them. Because he likes that the good are rewarded and the evil are punished. The characters are simple because they do not need to exist as fully rounded personalities – they just need to be figures who are rewarded or punished accordingly. In the spirit of democracy, he did include one tale which he didn't like, precisely due to the fact that the evil, incestuous father was left forgotten and unpunished.

Having been accustomed to over-interpretation and practising it ad nauseum, I cannot wait to approach the Tales once more with the simplicity of a child. There's a lot to be gained from that perspective. Perhaps I'll read his book. Or, perhaps, I'll go to the National's production of Hansel and Gretel, and see if the cast had been listening in, too.