the golden compass
i stayed up late last finishing phillip pullman’s excellent book the golden compass. it’s fantasy, but only loosely – pullman crafts a “universe like hours” in which witches, talking bears and animal companions, called daemons are entirely believeable and do nothing to detract from the basic humanity of the characters. it’s juvenile literature, but really only in the sense that the book has a youthful protagonist, Lyra, a streetwise young girl whose murky past, connections with academia, and curiosity cast her headlong into a dangerous journey. In all other respects, be it the length of the work, the language it uses, or the ideas it purveys (a critique of organized religion that alludes to the control of catholocism for instance) are just as enjoyable for someone my age as they are to a precocious child. this stuff is like harry potter, only darker, and arguably better. whereas the fantasy elements of harry potter at a spirit of whimsy and a golly-gee-that’s-neat factor, pullman uses his fantastic elements to enrich the character’s world and carry the plot along. I don’t really want to talk about the plot of the book. i’d rather just say that reading this book made me feel like i did when i read some of the llyod alexander stuff as a kid (though i by no means intend to draw any comparison between these works) . I was excited and genuinely interested in the characters and they’re adventures. it made me wish that i was reading the book, reading light clipped to my bunk bed, and hoping my mom wouldn’t come in, half delighted with my literacy and half overcome with maternal worry about getting enough sleep, to advise me that i had to get up early for school the next morning, in my bedroom back at my parents house. it made me experience the simple pleasure of reading for the sake of a story that i fealt when i eventually broke down and read the harry potter series. in this book, however, the idea of adults as both nurturing and inherently corrupt and the idea that nobility, courage, and destiny are all things best recognized by youth resinated with a far greater potency. this book was awesome. i’ll be sure to stop by the legion and pick up the other two books in the series as soon as i can. tim gives the book high marks as well, though, of course, he had read it years before i was introduced to it.