The Golden Compass

Philip Pullman

There's a (relatively) new series of so-called children's novels that's been knocking adults off their feet. It's won just about every kidlit award there is to be won, and has appeared on best-of lists around the globe. Despite being aimed at children, it's the kind of thing that gets better as the reader gets older; there's far more here than meets the eye and, like all great children's novels, reading them from an adult perspective will show you far more than you'll grasp as a kid.

But enough about Harry Potter.

At least, that's the hype that's been surrounding the HP books since HP and the Philosopher's Stone was published. Maybe I was just responding to the hype, but when I read it, I found it amusing enough, but wondered why J. K. Rowling was being hailed as the best thing since sliced bread. I have to admit, when words about Philip Pullman crossed my path, I approached with some trepidation, expecting another Potteresque expression of wonderment at how the marketing community impresses little minds.

How wrong I was. Philip Pullman's series has garnered only a fraction of the mainstream hullaballoo as has the little wizardlings and their school, but these three novels, collectively known as His Dark Materials (from a line in _Paradise Lost_), could easily fill the Shaq-sized sneakers Potter has garnered, and then some. The series starts off with The Golden Compass, which transcends the usual fantasy-series first-book blues (setup, setup, setup-- action's coming later, wot?) by throwing us into the thick of things from the get-go. Our heroine, Lyra Belacqua, has spent a carefree childhood growing up amongst (and annoying) the staff and scholars of Jordan College, a branch of Oxford dedicated to experimental theology one will only find in a parallel universe. In this particular parallel universe, every human being is equipped with a personal daemon (roughly equivalent to a guardian animal spirit, but with a lot more close personal contact). The antics begin when Lyra and her daemon go into one of those places where they're not supposed to be, hear things they're not supposed to hear, and (considering the whole thing a lark) decide to act on what they find. While there's obviously a good amount of setup therein, Pullman masks a good deal of it by weaving it into the adventures of the first book. The pace never slackens-- in fact, in some places, Pullman's ability to quicken the pace seems almost supernatural. By the time you're finished, Pullman has created an utterly believable parallel universe, generally sympathetic characters (with the exception of Lyra herself, who's a brat from beginning to end), and most importantly (for the author, anyway), an intense desire to continue on to book 2.