The Golden Compass
Tina
Turning it into a movie surely made me curious. I was immediately drawn by the concepts of a parallel universe, where the soul of a person is manifested in an animal companion called dæmons. I rarely buy new books (since I prefer to buy it second-hand), but I was forced to buy the original since this is relatively new book. I was not disappointed however, and ended up buying the two sequels in the span of three days.
It was easy to read, and I managed to finish reading it in a day. But I found myself hooked while following the journey of Lyra and her dæmon, Pantalaimon, to save her friend Roger from the hands of Mrs. Coulter. She brings with her an alethiometer, a device that tells the truth - if you know how to read it. Along the way, she met good friends like John Faa, Serafina, Lee and Iorek. Towards the end, she will discover the importance of the Dust (the particles present in all living creatures and makes the alethiometer work) and the true motives of Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel. But the book ends tragically, with Lyra pushing forward to another universe to rectify her error.
I advice that you have all three books of the His Dark Materials series (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) before starting to read this book. Personally, I think that His Dark Materials is one book chopped into three parts. So you can see why I immediately bought the rest of the books in the series.
Themes Discussed in the Book
The main theme is somewhat a distortion of the story of Adam and Eve. The “temptation of Eve” was seen as the start of the presence of Dust in the world. The Church, obviously sees this as bad, and they are bent on eradicating the presence of Dust in the world. But they use extreme measures to prevent the gathering of Dust. This is manifested by the work of the General Oblation Board (headed by Mrs. Coulter) to separate the dæmon from a child before reaching puberty. This gives rise to individuals who lack free will, acting only based on the orders given to them.We can see some sort of parallelism of this theme in human history. One could not forget the witch hunts performed by the Church, where individuals accused of being witches were burned at a stake. In fact, the leaders of Christianity practically destroyed the ancient religions, casting them as the works of the devil, before they converted people to Christianity. I think the book condemned these acts, and the attack is not directed to the Church itself.
One can also look at it as an attack on the suppression of knowledge and free will. This benefits the Church in Lyra’s world because the people will not question the teachings of the Church. The Church blames the Dust for making the people think for themselves that could lead to rebellions against the teachings of the Church. It is again similar to the conflict of Science and Religion in human history. Remember Galileo, who claimed that the Earth is not the center of the universe. In Lyra’s world, Lord Asriel embodies the quest for knowledge, going against the Church. But we witness the other end of the spectrum in this case, seeing that Lord Asriel is willing to end the life of a child in order to open a gate to another world.
Thoughts on the Book
What I liked about the book is that it was action-packed. It’s easy to imagine the scenes as you read the book. The idea of being able to talk to your soul in the form of an animal spirit is a nice touch. I imagine that it is hard to tell lies in Lyra’s world, since the feelings that you keep deep inside will be reflected in the actions of your dæmon. Luckily, Lyra’s daemon can transform so she can still hide her feelings. She can weave stories effortlessly, lying is just as natural to her as reading the alethiometer. This deception saved her from the clutches of Mrs. Coulter and the General Oblation Board, and it even helped Iorek to regain his honor.
My favorite scene was the battle between Iorek and Iofur. I was looking forward to the battle scene when they released the movie adaptation of this book. It’s the classic battle between good and evil, with the good side winning in the end. But I would like to view it as a conflict between wanting to be someone else and being yourself. Iofur was obsessed with humanity, he even wants to have a dæmon of his own. He is not comfortable with his own skin, and is willing to sell his soul in order to satisfy his greed. Iofur on the other hand, wants to regain his honor as an armored bear. Indeed, Iofur gets the upper hand because he is more focused on his goal.
Since the bad guys in Pullman’s book are members of the Church in Lyra’s world, one can expect controversy surrounding this book. I was only aware of the controversy surrounding this book after reading it. For the life of me, I can’t see why the Church is insistent on banning it. Indeed, this book casts the “Church” as the bad guys, but I don’t think that this is the message that the author wants to convey. It is an attack on the actions of the Church in the past, and not the Church per se.
Hmm, maybe one has to have a certain level of maturity for you to appreciate the book. This is definitely not a children’s book, and I was a bit surprised to find this book in the “young adult” section of Fully Booked. So maybe in some sense, the Church is right. But then, banning the book will only make people want to read it more.
Posted on: Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 10:06 am 
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June 13th, 2008 at 1:05 pm