Book Discussion: The Golden Compass - Contains SPOILERS! Finish the book first!

If you haven't finished the book then read no further!!!

**********************SPOILERS**********************

Hello? Hellloooooooooo! o! o! o! o!

I must be the first one here. I'm done. But tired.

More to come . . . .

Helloooo! And I'm not just an echo ;-)

OK, so I actually finished this a week or so ago but have been faffing. So here are some slightly random thoughts...

I, like a lot of people, loved the idea of a daemon, and thought he did a good job of normalising it such that being separated from ones daemon really was a horrifying prospect.

I wasn't convinced by Lyra's childlikeness - I've seen someone commenting that the book is basically plot driven with little regard to characters, which I would agree with. To me, she seemed to act as a child or an adult, depending on whether the plot required it, rather than because that's how a child in that situation would react. I think what brought this confusion home to me was the fact that in my head, I really couldn't work out what age she was meant to be, until we were told...

I didn't mind too much about the unconvincingness of the characterisation though because I thought the plot was good enough to sustain this. I liked the world he created, with its closeness to our world and yet its distance as well. Interestingly, I didn't think it was particularly critical of the church - yes, the Gobblers were part of the church but I didn't feel that, in this book at least, it was a commentary on what religions do. It reminded me more of the way that people can come to a stage where they are willing to abuse other humans for what they view as medical or scientific gain. The example that sprung to my mind was in world war 2, when prisoners of war were used by various nations as subjects for medical experiments. I'll be interested to see whether my opinion on how much he's attacking religion changes with the next two books.

Something that I found slightly disappointing was the fact that it seemed that quite a bit was made early on about the fact that Lyra was going to betray someone, and there were some not terribly subtle hints that it was going to be Iorek, which of course it turned out not to be. But when the betrayal finally did happen, I felt like there was no emotional weight to it at all - perhaps that was purposeful, but it was rather unsatisfying. Perhaps it was because Roger wasn't really a character in the book at all, whereas we'd had an opportunity to get to know Iorek, so it mattered to me as the reader more whether he lived or died. We were told that Roger mattered terribly to Lyra, but it didn't seem to me like we were given the opportunity to know him well enough to care. So to me the book ended a bit flatly, which was a shame, as I'd been enjoying it enormously up to then.

Anyway, that's enough random gibbering from me.

I finished several weeks ago, just waiting for the thread to get going.

While I can understand why this book appeals to a child reader, to this adult it leaves a bit to be desired. It has some nice ideas and touches (the daemons, the alitheometer , etc.), the lack of characterization described above is a problem. What little character Lyra is given is more obnoxious child than anyone I want to root for. But mostly, there is none.

My other problems are matters of personal taste: it contains 2 devices which are abundant in fantasy novels that always find me heaving great sighs of boredom: travel scenes (and lots of them) and a prophecy. Lyra is a superspecial double secret probation kid that the world is waiting for, and that's just an overplayed and sloppy device. (I forgave JKR in the Harry Potter series, but only just.) And travelling is just a (rather boring) way to pad out the book to novel length.

If I had read it as a child, I'm sure I would have been more caught up in the story and not bothered by what have developed into my adult sensibilities. Sometimes it's a shame to grow up, I guess.

The whole "controversy" thing is such a joke. Pullman's mad at misused and abusive authority, not religion necessarily, and definitely not spirituality, so what in the world is the big damn deal?

littlegeek - I don't understand. Why would you 'only just' forgive JKR for the prophecy of the superspecial etc whatever kid, but not at all forgive Pullman for it in an overall better written and more innovative book?

hmmm, blue, I guess I consider characterization pretty primal. I was much more able to become involved in the Harry Potter universe and story, since there were so many well-drawn and complex characters. I agree that Pullman writes a better sentence, but I want characters to root for, hate, get frustrated with, etc.

As for innovative, I don't see how Pullman rates higher than JKR. He stole the plot from Milton. I think HP has quite an engaging alternate world.

Oh yeah, another thing missing from Pullman, which JKR has in spades, is humour.

Maybe it's not that Pullman rates higher, plot-wise - I've never read Milton - but that JKR rates lower. For me, anyway. There are many, many similarly themed, better written, more interesting young-wizard-with-a-great-destiny series that just didn't manage to show up at quite the right time. And people who don't know what they're talking about kept hailing HP as "new".

Writing quality is vital for me. There are plenty of authors whose worlds I like, but whose books I can't read because their writing is just so obnoxious I can't stomach it.

#3 - LizT

SPOILER for next books?

I'm not sure whether this constitutes a spoiler or not (if so, please let me know), but the betrayal doesn't happen in this book. I wouldn't call what happened to Roger a betrayal as Lyra was trying as hard as she could to save him. She didn't consciously do anything meant to hurt Roger.

I read this book in my late 20s and again now in my 30s. I still really enjoyed the book. I think Lyra is more complex than we at first think. She's had to pretty much fend for herself her whole like in a community of well being but somewhat negligent scholars. I can understand how she could be a mix of child and adult. She's not used to expressing her emotions and she's had no one to show her affection. I think she finds it understandably difficult to communicate with those around her, especially adults, because of how she was brought up. But she has courage and loyalty and love as we see when she helps Iorek and persists in looking out for Roger.

I think Pullman is a wonderful writer. He made Lyra's world real for me. I was so appalled when I realized what the Gobblers' were experimanting with up north. Considering that the specific experiments could only happen in a fantasy world and not ours I thought it a great feat.

I agree w/sandragon that Lyra has had to kinda raise herself in the areas where all of those learned gentlemen have neglected to do the parental thing. She has led a kinda semi-feral existence in Oxford. Her formal academic instruction has been spotty at best & the moral guidance component mainly nonexistant. Without Pan she would have had a very lonely life at times. As sandragon said her moral compass seems to kick in when her friends need her help. I read the books about a year ago & really loved them. I'm skimming them to refresh my memory & reading all the postings while I'm also reading the David Colbert book on the trilogy. 8^)

Well, I'm sorta mixed myself on this one.

I agree with others, that it is full of all the fantasy tropes that I really don't like, the "one" child, the special magical gizmo, etc.

The rules of this universe seem to be anything goes. Talking animals, machine guns, witches, plasma lights, it's a hodge podge and rather than keep me guessing, it had me rolling my eyes because none of it made any coherent sense. Ok, I get it, it's sorta sideways to our universe, but wasn't interesting to me.

I also don't give a rip about the daemons, unlike most of the people that love the book, but I'm not a pet person, so have no interest in being followed about by an animal.

Of the characters, the only one I found quirky enough to like was the bear. Lyra was a bland heroine to me, but I did like the scene where she played out the deception with the bear-king.

As for religious controversy, I'll have to assume that's coming in subsequent books, because in this one it seemed like an anti-power structure/dogma theme. I suppose this dust may be bestowed by "god" to kill innocence and coat us with sin or some such thing. Can't exactly tell from this one. It was only in the last chapter or two that the word "Christian" suddenly popped up, and then Adam and Eve, again, sorta sideways.

Meh. That's my one word review. I suppose I'll soldier on through the other books to get to the juicy boycott-able parts, though.

I need to refresh myself on the book as well, but I loved The Golden Compass best of the three. Lyra and her adventures fed into all of my own childhood fantasies. The concept of the daemons was a favorite. I loved the idea of an animal guide that was with you always and also found the idea of an external soul fascinating. The other favorite was the polar bear.

The religious context does come in the later books to the point IMO that overwhelms the third and final book. It is also my least favorite of the three.

Edited to fix a really bad sentence.

The deal with the daemons, which I didn't fully understand until the later books, is that they are an external manifestation of a person's consciousness or "soul." The people who had been separated from their daemons were kind of bland, unthinking robots - kind of a metaphor for the mindless adherance to authority and lack of free, critical thought that religious faith can require.

I guess I'm in the "meh" camp. I wasn't all that impressed with the writing, the plotting or the characters. I liked bear and the Texan, but other than that the characters seemed pretty cookie-cutter to me. I was really disappointed with the use of the atheliometer to answer everything that came along except when Pullman inexplicably didn't have Lyra use the thing to answer some fundamental questions. Anyway, I thought it was a mediocre work. Nothing to go wild about, but not bad reading.

This was my first time to read it, and I'm in my mid-forties. I wonder if the age at which one first reads the book is correlated to response to the book. If we get enough discussion, it may be possible to test that.

I've read the book twice now - in fact, the whole series twice. The first book is unquestionably my favorite. I didn't particularly like Lyra, but I loved the daemon idea, and it read like pretty good fantasy to me. I was interested by the sideways world deal, and it gets more interesting as the books go along. The religion doesn't really come in so much until later in the series.

Complaining about the destined child trope is a bit harsh. This is pretty much a defining quality of fantasy. I can't think of any that doesn't have the hero have 'special' something*. That's what makes them the hero. Books where ordinary people go about there ordinary lives without anything special happening are normally called dull.

* even Bilibo was an out of the ordinary hobbit.

#15, It's not harsh, it's just why I don't generally read fantasy. I have enjoyed this group, and so have been participating in the group reads, and it's been a lot of fun. I really, really loved Tigana, I thought Elantris was OK, I didn't like American Gods at all, The Caves of Steel was another "meh", and this one is, as I said, meh.

So that's not a bad record for someone who doesn't really like fantasy at all and hadn't read any of it for 15 years before joining the group.

To round out the picture, I only re-read and now enjoy LOTR because of the films, they really led me back to the books. Now I get why elves are cool.

And I've read Joseph Campbell and know all about the hero's journey. And books where ordinary people go about their ordinary lives are sometimes gripping and are called novels.

Of The Golden Compass I still say, meh.

But bring on the next book! I'm happy to participate, and I enjoy these discussions!

I enjoyed the book as an adventure story with some fantasy elements. I agree that Lyra's character should be better developed, although I think we do see both the "before" state of her behavior before the adventure begins, and some developments as things happen to her. The description of her condition at the beginning of the book is simplistic and romantic, not especially attractive to an adult reader. What does her decision to follow her father mean? Is she simply as addicted to adventure and exhilaration as he is?

One thing I did like, which was almost like a parable, was Iorek's deception of the bear king in the fight, after he had told Lyra that bears cannot be deceived. The king was susceptible because he was trying to be what he was not. I'll be interested to see how that theme is carried forward in the subsequent volumes.

It seemed to me that the Church was the prime example for Pullman of people submitting unquestioningly to an authority that often didn't deserve their subservience. I suppose the bears' support of their preposterous king could be said to illustrate the same thing. Are there other examples?

It's been a few months since I read this, so I apologize for any memory gaps, but I agree with several others here that I would have liked it better as a child. I still enjoyed it but caught myself cringing a few times over plot devices or poorly integrated explanations and backstory.

That being said, my favorite things (and they only gets better in the next one) were the great references that Pullman slipped in there. I was thinking, Wow, he's referring to (obviously) Milton and Paradise Lost, John Donne, and I'm pretty sure there's a bit of Langland's Piers Plowman in there, too. In the next one, you get more of theoretical physics and C.S. Lewis's Perelandra. All in a children's series.

a lot of good points above me... I enjoyed the book as a children's fantasy, and I think that a lot of the "failings" others have pointed out simply serve to illustrate the difference between a child reading children's lit and an adult reading it and being bothered by weak points... our* complaints tend to be about things kids think are cool -- a magical device that can tell you the future! an animal to protect you and be your best friend! the heroic children, which are smarter than the evil adults -- etc, etc...

*...not that one can assume any LTer's age, but I would assume (yes, I know what they say about "assume") most posters here are adults or at least very well read, articulate and mature, and can read with a critical eye above the average for this book. You'e welcome for the the compliment.

btw, if they have daemons, do they have pets?

if they have daemons, do they have pets?

That occurred to me as I was thinking about this discussion, though it never occurred to me when I read the books before.

I can't imagine why they would need pets - aren't our pets basically a pale shadow of what daemons are?

Also, TeacherDad, I don't think it makes sense to say that a magical device that tells the future or animals to protect you and be your friend and so on are 'things kids think are cool' as though adults don't - how much adult fantasy do you read? Those types of things are definitely not uncommon in adult fantasy.

Edit: In fact, daemons and the alethiometer make a lot more sense than most of the similar things in other fantasy books. There are plausible (for the AU) explanations for how they work and why they exist - to read the alethiometer, you have to work hard, not just look at it and say a few words or whatever, and even then you might not understand what it's saying.

#18: I also noticed a definite correlation between these books and C.S. Lewis' space trilogy. Unfortunately for Pullman, he also gets more heavy-handed with the religious theme as the series moves on (that's what killed my interest in the space trilogy during the second book). He may profess to be an atheist, but I'm not so sure after reading these books.

Anyway, The Golden Compass was a fun read, though, and it gets more interesting and complex in the second volume, which was my favorite.

Blue, I didn't say adults do not think those things/literary devices are cool, I said that kids do... both can, there is no age limit on magic or talking animals or even cool (although I think mine expired a long time ago...); that said, I would hope the use of the alethiometer in adult fiction would be used in a more plausible way, both as an actual artifact in the story and as a literary device, and I think we need to be careful about judging a children's book with the same criterion as for adult fiction, fantasy or otherwise.

22 TD -

Actually, I didn't say that you said adults didn't think those things were cool, I said that you said it "as though adults don't", which was what your comment came across as, even if it isn't what you meant.

Out of curiosity, what do you think would be a more plausible way for the alethiometer to be used as an artifact? I thought it was well done, especially compared to crystal balls and visions and other analogous fantasy cliches.

To me, the alethiometer was a lot like the I Ching, but Lyra was reading it without the book (somehow). I think the Big Bad Authority Figures had a book to help them interpret it.

I love gadgetry and magic, and I'm an adult. What kids don't seem to need is characterization, just a hero or heroine and some good guys and bad guys. Grownups know life is more complex.

I just finished it this morning. I found it to be a fast read and flew through the book when I had time to read. Many of the adults seemed very 2 dimensional but I'm putting that down to the fact that most of the book was from Lyra's POV and she was off in her own little world most of the time, so we saw what she saw.

Her parents were just untouchable people with their own agendas. The bear was the first character that we really got to know through her.

I think the part I had the most problems with was Lyra's conversation with the witch during the balloon ride. That just seemed like a load of crap to me, since mostly they seemed to be added solely for a plot device to move things forward. The answers the witch gave were so 'idealized' as to be worthless or exposition to fill us in, especially given the realities being shown about them.

I kept waiting for the 'controversy' parts to show up and I didn't see anything in this book to warrant the hoopla. Just an overbearing political organization (the church) suppressing people.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book, though I happen to enjoy plot driven style which if kept up can help camouflage other problems. I'll continue with the other 2 as well.

#21 - I only ever read the second one of that trilogy (for a class on C.S. Lewis). So the first one didn't have an excrutiatingly long exclamation of religion? ;)

Out of curiousity, readafew, you didn't think Lord Asriel claiming the role of Lucifer there at the end was a bit controversial? I agree there wasn't as much in the first one as in the second, but that was a bit of a surprising moment.

I read the last 10 pages this morning while trying to hurry off to work, I'll have to reread them, apparently I missed this...

After looking at it again, I still don't see that. I'd like to know how Lord Asriel is being compared to Lucifer other than being named after a demon (not daemon).

Asriel is Lucifer; the plot of the book is a retelling of Paradise Lost. But if you don't know the reference (and I didn't until I read about it on the internet) you could easily miss it.

I suppose it would help if I was familiar with Paradise Lost then, I've never even had a clue as to the plot of it. Live and learn.

Sorry it took me so long to respond, readafew, but it took a while to find the page I was looking for.
The reference to "His Dark Materials" is what Lucifer crossed in going from one world to the world where Adam and Eve were (like Asriel crossing through to other worlds). And towards the end Asriel says:

"Somewhere out there is the origin of all the Dust, all the death, the sin, the misery, the destructiveness of the world. ... And I'm going to destroy it, Lyra. Death is going to die."

Earlier he had said that Dust was essentially the basis of their religion, so destroying Dust means challenging God.

I was actually quite startled there because (in my head) he was claiming to be BOTH Lucifer and Jesus, all rolled into one. I've never been able to find it, but I know I've read some medieval text where Jesus went down into Hell to challenge and defeat death, and it used words very similar to those. I wish now that I could find it.

The controversy doesn't *really* get going, though, until the next book.

I just finished, and loved it. The whole daemon idea, once I bought into, really moved me. I saw the daemons mostly as pets, but what pets! They are the perfect pet, you can talk with them, they talk back, and they still love you and cuddle with you. You can use all their sense and instincts, and get their advice. (Wish my dogs could do all that, although I did love them curling up on my lap while I read.) The idea of severing kids from these fantastic creations really got to me.

Of course, the daemons are mainly external souls. I think this is a brilliant idea, because there is so much he can now personify about his interpretation of our souls. Pullman has endless possibilities at this point. (The comparison of severing to castrating got me thinking.)

Regarding the "controversy" about this book and the movie based on it: my understanding is that the people opposed to the book/movie base their opposition on the author's declaration of his atheism and his allegedly stating that the trilogy was all about "killing God". I don't remember any of the criticism being specific only to this first book of the three.

It seems most of the religion stuff turns up in books two and three, so Pullman is accused of pulling readers in with the agreeable first book and then hitting them hard with his beliefs in later books.

Stargazer (#31), the thing about Jesus going into Hell is that when he was crucified the three days he spent dead he spent in Hell to defeat death and Satan and win the keys to Hell so that he (Jesus) had the say of who goes where upon dying. (How's that for a run-on sentence?) The idea is biblically-based though I can't verify off the top of my head that it's in the Bible in so many words.

Here is an LA Times story on the e-mail. One thing I find interesting is the dramatically different responses from the British Churches compared to those in the US. (the spider eggs in bubble gum reference is kind of interesting too).

Religious furor over 'The Golden Compass'

edited - "LA Times", not "LT Times"

>35 dchaikin:: thanks for the LA Times link, it's an excellent article -- some thoughts as I read it:

"...a senile, pretender God who has falsely passed himself off as the creator of the universe." ...sounds like the Wizard of Oz to me.

And didn't Jesus, that rebel of all rebels, say something about abolishing the old laws (rulers, priests, etc) and building something new?

#26: The first book of the C.S. Lewis space trilogy is far, far, far better than the second. It contains a great deal of musing on linguistics, which I find interesting, and the plot moves quicker (plus there is the pleasing absence of plodding, page-after-page religious prose).

I found Pullman's books much easier to read and more satisfying.

#37 I agree! OOtSP is a wonderful space adventure, a great example of exploring a new planet, with some of CSL's best writing. Perelandra is excruciating. That Hideous Strength is hard to describe; more similar to OOtSP in that it's more action-oriented than Perelandra, but some standard clunky Lewis un-subtlety, as in changing Ransom's name to Fisher-King.

For Pullman, I found the third book to be the one that was hijacked by his theological/philosophical musings, but to nowhere near the extent that it happens in Perelandra.

The first five minutes of the movie is now online at:

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/thegoldencompass.html?showVideo=1

In case you are interested...

Not a very big reveal. But nonetheless, I am looking forward to seeing it in the theatre. Big Screen, you know.

What do people think about the technology in Lyra's world?

This is one of the biggest disconnects for me. I'm not sure what if any point Pullman is trying to make here. He certainly seems confused. Lyra's world appears to have followed a different path, but for an equivalent duration. Hence we have atomic power, and electric, but electric rarely used, and no obvious means of supply - atomic apparently they've cracked the miniturisation problem and the waste problem.

Yet horses and barges are still widely used.

Just seems an odd mishmash and poorly designed.

To me most of the technology felt like the late 1800's. I think that a lot of the technology was stifled by the church.

#41-42 I keep picturing a Texan with a suped-up oversized hand-gun firing at some strange form of bird-frog (adapted to arctic temperatures no-less) while riding in a hot-air balloon pulled against the wind by witches in short sleeves in -20deg F weather. I think artistry overrode fully thought out technological development.

This also my explain machine guns, vans and blimps, but no airplanes.

#42 I think the society has been frozen in the late 1800's but then there's a bit of mixed in technology to keep it "current" it is just odd to me.

It seems to be a rather stratified society. I suspect the higher forms of technology (above anbaric) are available and widely known only to the uppermost classes.

>5 bluesalamanders: i know