“The Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman
The Golden Compass is another book my 10yo is reading in school that I decided to read along. Unfortunately, he is restrained to 2 chapters every 2 days and asked not to read ahead, and I found that it is very hard not to devour this book. It has a very high want-to-know-what-happens-next quotient.
Lyra Belacqua is a pre-teen girl raised mostly by male scholars in an alternative world’s Oxford University. Her uncle Lord Asriel is her benefactor, but sneaky Lyra is soon off on adventure, involving missing children, a beautiful temptress named Mrs. Coulter, and figuring out who Lord Asriel is. Oh, and there are animal familiars called daemons, warlike polar bears, witches, mysterious Dust with a capital D, and more.
Pullman has crafted a rich and fascinating alterna-world. An avowed atheist, the author is trying to tell a mythic adventure story without relying on religion, other than to send a few barbed arrows at Catholicism.
“Witches have never worried about Dust. All I can tell you is that where there are priests, there is fear of Dust.”
But the resulting portrayal, that it’s all fate, doesn’t quite jive with the conflict of the plot.
“We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not,” said the witch, “or die of despair.”
Lyra is smart and strong, but as portrayed in this book, she’s just following THE path fate has laid out for her, not one of many possible paths, and this bugs me because how much adventure can there be, if things are all mapped out, even in just the author’s head? Lyra’s alethiometer, the golden compass of the title, is a device that tells truth of the past present and future. I find it too pat and convenient to have something so absolute.
May 18th, 2014 at 2:29 pm
I’m so glad you are posting more these days! I love reading about what you are reading.
May 19th, 2014 at 11:40 am
Janet, it is good to be blogging again. I find I get more out of the books when I write about them later.