Barbara's Random Thoughts

I wrote briefly about this book before, and said I'd write more when I finished it. Well, I finished it a good while ago...and should have written something when it was still fresh in my mind, but oh well! Here goes.

The Golden Compass is the first book in Philip Pullman’s "His Dark Materials" trilogy. The main character, Lyra, has spent her childhood running wild around Jordan College, Oxford. Events conspire to take her away from Jordan, and she seeks protection from the gyptians (kinda like gypsies), some witches, an armored polar bear, and an aeronaut as she journeys North. Her goal is to find her Uncle Asriel and deliver a mysterious golden compass to him, as well as to find her friend Roger, one of many children who've been stolen away by the "Gobblers."

An interesting aspect of this particular fantasy world: Everyone has animal "daemon," described as a physical manifestation of a person's soul. Daemons can change form until their human reaches puberty, at which point the daemon fixes on just one animal shape. There is an invisible physical connection between human and daemon, which keeps them always together.

The anti-religious agenda I've heard so much talk about is not overtly present in this first book of the trilogy. But I can guess at where things are headed, from little hints at the end of the book.

A bunch of the adults in the book are obsessed with studying something they call "Dust." It's only visible in certain types of photographs, and the theory is that Dust is actually original sin. Very little Dust is seen around children until they reach puberty. There’s a bunch of bad people experimenting on children to try and discover how to get rid of Dust completely. At the end of the first book (and I don't think this is giving away the ending), Lyra and her daemon conclude that Dust must be good, since the people trying to get rid of Dust are bad.

"We've heard them all talk about Dust, and they're so afraid of it, and you know what? We believed them, even though we could see that what they were doing was wicked and evil and wrong...We thought Dust must be bad too, because
they were grown up and they said so. But what if it isn't?"
"Yeah! What if it's really good..."
If Dust were a good thing...If it were to be sought and welcomed and cherished...

So I can see where Pullman might take this...he’s already set up original sin as potentially a good thing, and everyone against it as evil, child-torturing fanatics.

That said, I really liked the fantasy world Pullman created. I loved the idea of the daemons, and the armored polar bears are really cool. There were some parts of the book that surprised me with their intensity, and a few times, with pretty graphic violence. I'd definitely have to classify this as young adult, not children's fiction.

Though I really liked the book, I was uneasy with the ending, and not just because of the "Dust is good" thing. The book gets you to really care about the children, and I became quite horrified at what was happening to them. And I felt that Lyra’s response to the event at the very end of the book really diminished the importance of that. Something that should have cut her very deeply was brushed off far too quickly for me.

I'm curious to read the next two books, but hesitant to actually shell out money for them. Gotta get me a library card for San Mateo County.