The Golden Compass(es)

By Philip Pullman
Read: August 2008
Rating: Intense

I totally missed the boat on this one. It’s a real shame, because I think I would have quite liked it at the time it was published, and I was just ten years old. At 22, I’m much more critical of some things, and less easy to impress in other ways. I will say this, though: it kept me reading. A really great subway book. Not too heavy or awkward, and it holds your attention through people jostling around you. (A guy called me ‘mama’ today. As in, ‘excuse me, mama.’)

If I didn’t know anything about Philip Pullman, I would think this was a first novel. It’s not. He had some 15 books to his credit when the Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights) was published. This does not make me happy.

This should not happen:

174: Lyra could see exactly what would happen next: he’d crush the man’s skull like an egg,

198: I would have crushed that man’s head like an egg.

94: She sliced a couple of rashers of bacon into the frying pan. and cracked an egg to go with them.

302-303: two blows, and it was cracked like an egg

Pullman has some great imagery, and the first time I noticed these particular examples was on 174. The image of a bear, with a man’s head in his jaws, abotu to crush it like an egg, was very powerful. But 22 pages later, the exact phrase was repeated. When I did an search for “egg” (thank you, Amazon Search In Book!) I found that it was used two more times, in exactly the same way. That’s bloody sloppy, I’m sorry. When the example on 303 came up again, it was a milder annoyance–I wanted to keep reading. There was another example prior to the first skull-egg-crushing, but I didn’t make a note to pull it up later. Two incidents in one volume is sloppy, dammit.

And I didn’t really LIKE any of the characters. Lyra is not a role model, and she’s not meant to be–which I do like, as that’s rare in a childrens’ book. She’s a mild anti-hero. I sympathized with her in a removed sort of way–this child who’s experiencing a helluva lot, and isn’t really the best person… I felt she needed to go through it to grow up and get real. The adults weren’t moving, and the ones I might’ve taken a liking to got pushed out of the way. Tony Costa, Lord Asriel, Lee Scoresby, Serafina Pekkala, even Mrs. Coulter. All got shafted. Not that Farder Coram wasn’t cool.

As for religious whatnot, there’s nothing too outrageous here. The conversation between Serafina and Lee felt a little stilted and “We are talking like this to advance the plot”-ish. The narrative mostly stays close to Lyra, save some all-omnipotent statements along the lines of ‘but she would find out later…’ That one scene felt very out of place, as Lyra was asleep at the time.

Here’s one thing I DID like that really took me by surprise–the final scene between Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel. That was really, really smoky-steamy. I’ve read romance novels that haven’t made my gut clench like that. Those are two VERY well-suited people. Sure, they’ve got their (glaring) faults, but wow. I want to see the parallel universe where they stay together and do mad science in between wild monkey sex in the closet that poor Lyra is all too aware of.

Ahem. Anyway, I’ll be moving on to the next one soon. Though I’m not pleased to hear that they apparantly “censored passages describing Lyra’s incipient sexuality.” Wiki The girl is twelve, and these books have a lot to do with puberty. Showing her transition IS IMPORTANT, YOU PRUDES!