The Golden Compass Review

Hello Interwebs!

Here’s another book review for you! This is one for another book I re-read listening to the audio book: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy. I listened to this from 6 July 2020 to 7 July 2020 while on vacation with my partner and son. This was a 5/5 star read for me when I first read in while in middle school 20 years ago and it really held up as a 5-star read. This was my partner’s first exposure to the book and he also found it highly enjoyable.

 As always, spoilers abound after the book picture. 

The Golden Compass follows 12-year-old Lyra Belacqua and her daemon Pantalaimon on their adventures in a fantastical steampunk version of our world. In Lyra’s version of the world the world is dominated by an international catholic based theocracy known as the Magisterium. Humans’ souls exist outside of their bodies in the form of talking animals known as daemons. Daemons can change form until the child goes through puberty when the daemon falls into a settled form. At the beginning of the novel, Lyra and her daemon live at Jordan College in Oxford under the guardianship of the college’s Master. While hiding in the retiring room for the scholars Lyra sees the Master slipping poison into her Uncle, Lord Asriel’s wine. Lyra saves Lord Asriel from the poison and is allowed to spy on his lecture about mysterious elementary particles called “Dust” that is more attracted to adults than children and have something to do with the Northern Lights and a city in a parallel universe that can be seen in the lights of the aurora. The scholars agree to fund the research and Asriel departs. Lyra’s life continues in Oxford with her friend Roger, the kitchen boy, and other children in the city although stories of children abducted by the sinister “Gobblers” are being told. Then Roger is taken, and a glamourous woman named Mrs. Coulter with a sinister golden monkey daemon comes to Jordan College and decides to take Lyra to her home in London with her. The morning before she departs, the Master gives Lyra a truth-telling device called an alethiometer, the title golden compass, with a caution to keep it secret from Mrs. Coulter. While acting as Mrs. Coulter’s assistant in London, Lyra learns that she is the head of the ‘Gobblers” known officially as the General Oblation Board. Lyra doesn’t understand what exactly is happening, but she runs from Mrs. Coulter’s during a party and is saved from the Gobblers herself by the Gyptians. The Gyptians are nomads that live in boats traveling the canals and have had many of their own children taken. One of the Gyptian women, Ma Costa, has had her son Billy taken from her and the King of the Gyptians reveals that Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are Lyra’s real parents and she was nursed by a Gyptian woman to keep her safe from her mother’s jealous husband, the Gyptian woman being Ma Costa. The Gyptians begin an expedition north to rescue their taken children and Lyra is taken along with the expedition. Along the way they gather the armored bear Iorek Byrnison, the dispossessed King of the Bears. Lyra uses the alethiometer to find his missing armor and in return both he and his human aeronaut friend, Lee Scoresby, join the group. She learns that Lord Asriel been captured by the Magisterium and imprisoned in Svalbard by the armored bears. The search party keeps going towards a place called Bolvangar, the research station held by the General Oblation Board where they believe the kids are being kept. Guided by the alethiometer, Lyra and Iorek detour to a village where they find an abandoned child who has been cut away from his daemon and soon dies. In an attack by bounty hunters, Lyra is captured and taken to Bolvangar where she finds both Roger and Billy Costa. They find the daemons of the cut children and with the help of a witch’s daemon sets them all free. Lyra is seized by the doctors there and they almost perform an intercision, the cutting process between child and daemon before Mrs. Coulter arrives on her visit to the research station and saves them. Lyra escapes from Mrs. Coulter and escapes the station by activating the emergency alarm and setting the building on fire. They are rescued by Scoresby, Iorek, the Gyptians and the witch clan headed by Serafina Pekkala whose daemon had helped Lyra save the severed daemon. On the way to Svalbard in the balloon, they are attacked, and Lyra falls out of the balloon but is taken to Svalbard and its king the usurper Iofur Raknison. Lyra tricks Iofur into fighting Iorek, who kills Iofur and retakes his place as King. Along with Iorek and Roger, Lyra finds her father Lord Asriel who tells her everything he knows about Dust; that it created parallel worlds and that the Church believes it is the physical mark of sin on a person. The church is researching severing children from their daemons before puberty hits and the daemons gain a fixed form and therefore before original sin descends on them and they lose their innocence. Lord Asriel then takes Roger into the snow and Lyra follows with Iorek. When Iorek cannot go any further he joins the battle between the bears and the witch clans that follow Asriel as well as Mrs. Coulter and her Tartar army. Mrs. Coulter follows Lyra to the top of the mountain where Asriel severs Roger from his daemon, killing Roger to harness the energy released during the process to tear a hole in the aurora and open a door to a parallel world. Mrs. Coulter refuses Asriel’s offer to help him and remains behind when he leaves through the portal and then Lyra and her daemon follow him through.

 This book is great as it has rich, vibrant realistic characters that exist in a familiar world that is somehow still completely fantastic and unlike our own. The villains are completely villainous and still catch you by surprise, especially Lord Asriel. They don’t just say they’re villains, but the book shows you why they’re villains and has warnings about the dangers of extremism. Lyra’s mistakes aren’t stupid ones but rather ones made with the innocence and naivete of a child. The secondary characters are just as fleshed out and rich as the main ones and you feel alongside them as events unfold in the book. The audio book is especially good because it is performed by a full cast which makes it feel like an old-time radio show.

 After finishing the book and returning from our vacation, my partner and I watched the BBC show His Dark Materials that just finished its first season. The show stars Dafne Keen as Lyra, James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, Ruth Wilson as Mrs. Coulter, and Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby. It was very well done and covered the events in the first book along with some of the events you get in the second book via flashbacks as they occurred alongside the events of the first book. The show was well cast and well-acted and a faithful adaptation of the series. I’m looking forward to re-reading the other two books as well as giving the new series in this world The Book of Dust a try with my rental of the first book La Belle Sauvage. I highly recommend both the books and the BBC series, and it holds up as a 5-star read.

Happy Reading!

Richelle and Emma