The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
January 9, 2008 by Andrew
I’m going to get flak for this post, even if it’s just sour looks from my colleagues, so at least I can say I know what I’m getting into. I read The Golden Compass, mostly because a group of blathering troglodytes told me I can’t, but if this is the biggest challenge organized religion has to face, it has nothing to worry about. (Yeah, I know it was the movie that tripped their ire-trigger, but I don’t go to the movies often and the book was at hand. So my bid for free speech was really more a matter of convenience…)
I don’t really know what the big deal is. Granted I didn’t read the whole trilogy, and based on the execution of the first book am not terribly inclined to. I’m not going to get into the whole theology/atheism authoritarian/’child empowerment’ debate because I don’t care. And I’m certainly going to look askance at anyone who gushes that it is the best book evah, or that it is a readalike for Harry Potter.
Pullman has a wonderful imagination – fertile enough to create a technological world that still worships science as magic, and people it with vividly introduced characters accompanied by animal daemons that reflect their personalities. Beyond that, though, the Golden Compass devolved into a mishmash of adventure stories, a tentative coming of age tale, and a multi-dimensional political battle. The adventure stories weren’t particularly gripping, the coming of age undelineated, and the offstage politics only provided Pullman a deus ex machina to imperil and rescue people as needed.
The main character, Lyra, is threatened by a mysterious group known for kidnapping children. After escaping from a villain, she joins a group of “Gyptians” (read water-borne gypsies) searching for the mysterious group. Lyra and the Gyptians end up heading North, and finding an armored bear (the most interesting character in the story) who helps them rescue the stolen children. Lyra chases after one of the kids, who has been taken for extra-nefarious purposes, and climbs an aurora into the sky. Along the way there is some babble about ‘the Magisterium’ which is supposed to represent an unReformed Catholic Church, and Dust, which represents some theological or physical power.
Maybe I’m approaching it as a too-critical adult; maybe I didn’t give it enough time or thought; maybe I’ve been tortured by Skraelings – in any case, The Golden Compass wasn’t my cup of tea. Read it and decide for yourself.
I pretty much agree with everything you said. Steams my kettle when people stick their noses up in the air and say it’s “like Harry Potter… but ever so much better, more sophisticated.” Bah!
I will say that the trilogy is better as a whole than the first volume by itself. And the character development improved as time went on– hence my spate of tears when one of the secondary characters died in book two.
Plus, even though I haven’t seen the movie, I’ve seen picture stills– and boy howdy, Nicole Kidman is one fine-lookin Mrs. Coulter.