The Golden Compass
No. 1 in the His Dark Materials series
by Philip Pullman
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Alfred A. Knopf (New York): 1995. Trade paperback: 399 pages. ISBN-10: 0-679-89310-5 Suggested retail price: $10.00 (US) Tags: alternate universes; Fantasy; northern lights; original sin; physics; trilogy; Young Adult Tactical strength: [7/10] |
The Golden Compass begins a trilogy about Lyra Belacqua, who at first seems an ordinary bratty girl taken in by the professors at Oxford University. But, we quickly begin to see that Lyra's world, although similar to ours, has some drastic differences. In particular, people in Lyra's word each have a daemon -- an external manifestation of the person's soul. Lyra's daemon, Pantalaimon, often acts as a conscience as well as a companion, lookout, and guardian.
Lyra has a knack for getting into trouble. She likes nothing more than climbing over the roofs of the university buildings with her playmate Roger. While hiding in a closet, Lyra overhears plans to kill her uncle, the politically powerful Lord Asriel. Lyra warns Asriel and remains in the closet to overhear an experimental theology conference about a mysterious substance called Dust.
At the same time, a secret government organization has started kidnapping children and transporting them to the Arctic. When Roger disappears, Lyra sets out on a mission to discover and rescue him. Just before her departure, the Master of Jordan college gives Lyra an alethiometer -- a mysterious golden compass that many of her adult pursuers seem to want to acquire. Lyra forges ahead into a great adventure and remains mostly oblivious to her role in a great political struggle.
Because of Lyra's oblivious nature, Pullman would have had a hard time telling The Golden Compass from a limited third-person point of view. He effectively uses an omniscient point of view to give the reader a sense of the greater meaning and seriousness of the events that seem to follow Lyra in her quest. In several places, Pullman employs long expository lumps to explain things to the reader. These usually come in the form of an adult explaining something (for several pages) to Lyra. In most cases, the adults would never have bothered explaining such detail to a young child, who couldn't usually care less about such details, and Pullman often explains that Lyra didn't even understand the discussion anyway. These lumps get in the way of an otherwise clean writing style that quickly engages the reader and creates a vivid picture of Lyra's familiar, yet strange, world. Pullman has created a moral fantasy that will sit well on the shelf next to C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia and may even have similar staying power.
