Ever since I saw the preview for HBO's His Dark Materials adaptation, I have been itching to start reading the series. I've had all three books sitting on my shelf for a while now, but I hadn't gotten a chance to pick them up yet. With the show set to premier in November, I figured it was time to get started.
Book one, The Golden Compass, is set in an alternate version of England. In this world, religious orders control the government, magic is real, and everyone has a personal daemon companion. The story follows Lyra Belacqua, a young orphan who has grown up in Jordan College, a part of Oxford University. She has an uncle, Lord Asriel, but he is frequently away in the North on various political missions and she doesn't see him much. She has been raised by a collection of stodgy academics, and has grown up half intelligent and half wild as a result. She has spent most of her young life so far playing outside with the children of the servants and wandering the university's sprawling campus.
She is drawn into a mystery when one of her usual exploring sessions results in her overhearing a meeting between her uncle and other senior college staff members containing some troubling news. Children are disappearing from the city, snatched away by a mysterious group of men nicknamed "Gobblers." When her friend Roger disappears soon after this, Lyra embarks on a quest to the dangerous North to try and find him. On her way, she will encounter witches, armored polar bears, and truly evil machinations. Secrets are revealed, trust is betrayed, and her view of the world is irrevocably shifted.
The Golden Compass is a very difficult book to write a succinct and accurate summary for, because the world Philip Pullman creates in it is so rich and layered. Lyra's England runs on a curious mixture of religion, science, and magic, and all of these elements conflict with each other throughout the story. The setting is a strange mixture of the antiquated and the modern, making it both fascinating and a little tricky to envision clearly. Members of different political factions are all striving towards different goals, and their clashes with each other weave a complex network of plot lines to untangle. It was a pleasantly surprising challenge and an absolute pleasure to make my way through this novel. It's a young adult fantasy that does not talk down to its audience and doesn't shy away from showing all the sides of humanity, from the irrepressibly good to the unrelentingly evil.
One aspect of the story that I found especially intriguing were the antagonists. When reading a fantasy novel, especially one that I know has a talking bear in it, I expect the villain of the story to be darkly magical or maybe some sort of evil monster or force of nature. While the story does contain plenty of fantastical elements, the evil the Lyra fights against is all too human. Her enemies here are the ruthless ambitions of regular people who are working at cross-purposes to each other, and to humanity as a whole. I liked exploring this juxtaposition throughout the story. In a setting imbued with the impossible, the greatest dangers Lyra faces are rooted in impulses that could exist in any world.
Speaking of the talking bear, I must devote a few sentences to him. Iorek Byrnison was definitely my favorite character in this book, and has also become one of my favorite characters of all time. The armored polar bears in the story have their own society and culture in the far north, but we meet Iorek far from this city. He's been exiled from his people for killing another bear, and has been working for a man in a human town repairing sledges. After Lyra does an important favor for him, he joins her on her quest to the north. Iorek is a bear of few words; he is gruff, matter-of-fact, and quite abrupt most of the time. However, he is fiercely loyal to Lyra and becomes her devoted friend throughout the story. Their relationship was very sweet to watch unfold and I grew quite attached to him. The danger of falling in love with a character in a trilogy is that they character could change in unfavorable ways, disappear from the story, or die as the series moves on. I hope Iorek stays around and stays just the way I like him.
The ways magic functioned in this story were quite unique, and I especially enjoyed the daemon system. A daemon in this universe is the outward expression of a person's soul. It takes the form of an animal and stays by its person's side for life, like a built-in best friend. The connection between daemons and their people is deep; when a daemon feels pain, their person feels it too. To be away from each other, even for a few seconds, is unthinkable. Lyra's daemon, Pantalaimon, usually takes the form of an ermine and helps her in many ways throughout the story. Of course, all of the other characters have daemons too, and they all work to help their people, whether their personal aims are good or evil. I liked the whole idea of this and found the inclusions of the daemons to be a very cool part of the story.
I went into reading The Golden Compass thinking I would probably enjoy it. Happily, that ended up being an understatement. There was a lot to like here and I was extremely impressed with the quality of the story and the depth of the world. This novel is a new favorite for me, and I sincerely hope that its creativity, uniqueness, and emotional storytelling continue on throughout the rest of the series. The story ends on a serious cliffhanger, and I'm very excited to pick up The Subtle Knife soon and find out how Lyra's journey continues.
Challenge Tally
Finally in 2019: 41/6 Books Read - Complete!
Total Books Read in 2019: 64
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