The Golden Compass
The Golden Compass is the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials
trilogy. While the trilogy in it's entirety is fairly controversial due
to it's negative portrayal of the church, this theme doesn't really
become apparent until the end of the first book. Instead, The Golden Compass
is at heart an adventure tale. It follows eleven-year-old Lyra Belacqua
as she journeys north to save her best friend, Roger, from the
Gobblers. The Gobblers have been kidnapping children for their own
nefarious purposes.
The Golden Compass takes place in a world that is similar to ours, but also incredibly different. The first and most dramatic difference is that a person's soul actually manifests as an animal companion known as a daemon. There are more subtle etymological and historical differences. For example, in this book John Calvin became pope and then ultimately disbanded the papacy in favor of a board of officials known as The Magisterium. The church he created is far more powerful in Lyra's world than in our own.
This is actually my third (possibly fourth) time reading this book. The first time, I read the entire trilogy in less than a week. This time I slowed down to Mark's chapter a day pace over at Mark Reads. This allowed me to dig in to a lot of the details I missed on previous reads. And there are a lot of details. Pullman created an incredible rich world, using ours for a blueprint. Every alteration makes sense and paints a richer image of Lyra's world.
The really amazing part is that he manages to balance the introduction of this foreign world with the development of some incredible characters and a fast-moving plot. Lyra travels from Oxford to London to Svalbard to what must be close to the north pole. And Pullman does a good job of never making the story feel rushed, despite the fact that it never lets up.
There are things in the other two books that rubbed me the wrong way. But we'll get to those in the next few months. If memory serves, this first book is definitely my favorite of the trilogy. Assuming you don't mind open endings, it works quite well as a stand-alone book.
The Golden Compass takes place in a world that is similar to ours, but also incredibly different. The first and most dramatic difference is that a person's soul actually manifests as an animal companion known as a daemon. There are more subtle etymological and historical differences. For example, in this book John Calvin became pope and then ultimately disbanded the papacy in favor of a board of officials known as The Magisterium. The church he created is far more powerful in Lyra's world than in our own.
This is actually my third (possibly fourth) time reading this book. The first time, I read the entire trilogy in less than a week. This time I slowed down to Mark's chapter a day pace over at Mark Reads. This allowed me to dig in to a lot of the details I missed on previous reads. And there are a lot of details. Pullman created an incredible rich world, using ours for a blueprint. Every alteration makes sense and paints a richer image of Lyra's world.
The really amazing part is that he manages to balance the introduction of this foreign world with the development of some incredible characters and a fast-moving plot. Lyra travels from Oxford to London to Svalbard to what must be close to the north pole. And Pullman does a good job of never making the story feel rushed, despite the fact that it never lets up.
There are things in the other two books that rubbed me the wrong way. But we'll get to those in the next few months. If memory serves, this first book is definitely my favorite of the trilogy. Assuming you don't mind open endings, it works quite well as a stand-alone book.
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