Book report: The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman

Book report: The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman

This is a really good science fantasy adventure story, something like "Chronicles of Narnia" or "Lord of the Rings". A seemingly ordinary girl named Lyra turns out to have a central role in strange and complex plots that affect the entire world.

Her world is a fantastic and imaginative alternate version of our own. In this steampunk world, there are zeppelin airships but no airplanes, trains but no cars, and electricity but no telecommunications. Science is a branch of theology, and the last Pope was named Kelvin. Part of the fascination of the book is to compare our world to this world, and wonder what made the difference. I love how what we call "electric", they call "amberic", for example.

The fantasy comes in various forms, including and especially the personal "demons" that every person has in this world. A demon is like a physical manifestation of your mind and spirit, in the form of an animal. Demons are beloved by their person and accompany their person everywhere, are intelligent, talk, and interact with the world at large. No one is ever alone in this world: you always have your demon with you to comfort you. (I wonder what Carl Sagan would have thought of this.) There are also witches, who can fly and live for a long time, and who battle and support various factions.

Lyra is swept away from her unsupervised life in a humdrum college town to a series of adventures and intrigues all over Europe and the Arctic. There are many mysteries, dangers, and unusual characters to deal with. She's a plucky and clever heroine.

The writing is excellent: clear and detailed. The world is richly imagined. The plot is clear and well told, with lots of twists I didn't see coming. The only thing missing is people. This book has plenty of characters, but no people. No one has any feelings or reactions. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the author is autistic or, possibly, a robot. When Lyra's best friend is kidnapped by faceless bogeymen who might well kill and eat him, her reaction isn't fear or outrage or horror or sadness or despair. It's more like: Mental Note: rescue him. When she learns that two important people in her life are not who she thinks they are at all, and she has to rethink her entire life to that point, she's not disturbed or shaken or frantic. She isn't anything. There's a little flicker of something when she finds a boy who's been tortured and subsequently dies, but not much. Reminder: this isn't some tough and hardened adult having these experiences, it's a little girl. And she's not the only character like this. When the rowdy and undisciplined Gyptians have a big gathering to thresh out what action to take about their children being kidnapped never to be seen again, there's no wailing or anger or hysteria. Everyone sits quietly and observes Robert's Rules of Order. It's like the Stepford World.

Major irony: At one point in the story, there are these certain characters who the author describes as having had a procedure done to them and therefore have very dimmed feelings. I burst out laughing when I read this, because *everyone* in this book is that way. I would say they're carved out of wood, but at least wood was alive at some point.

I find this very surprising in a novel that is 1) fantasy and 2) aimed towards kids (I got this out of the Young Adult section of the library). When you consider how much emotion other fantasies evoke from simple statements like "it's always winter and never Christmas" or "I can't do this, Sam", it's astonishing what a lack of feeling there is in this book. It's like everyone's modeled on Newton or Brutus or something. It's hard to imagine any kid thinking of this as their favorite book, unless their other favorite book is Principia Mathematica. But what do I know? It's won awards and been made into a movie.

You know how you can tell what authors are like from their books? Like when you read Dickens, you can tell that he loves people. And you can just tell that Ayn Rand hates people. Well, this author – I won't say he's as far along the scale of loathing as Ayn Rand, but I definitely have an image of him wrinkling his nose at humanity, as if confronted with a diaper full of poo.

After reading the book, I read some things about it and the author. I was very surprised to find out that it's supposed to be anti-religious, anti-Christian, and anti-Catholic. I never noticed that. He does set up a straw-man bogeyman Church (The Magisterium), and a straw-man sinister cabal (General Oblation Board), and even a straw-man rewritten book of Genesis (I'm not kidding), and dutifully knocks them all down. But if people are going to be offended by stuff as abstract from reality as this, then they probably have a hard time with Webster's Dictionary, too.

As to the looming menace of the book turning kids into raving rationalists, I wouldn't worry about that. Before reading the commentaries, I would have said the book is anti-science, if anything. For example, the only people who actually seem to do any experiments in the book (making them scientists, right?) are horrible and do nasty things to human victims. Also, there's a device in the book that reveals the truth about anything: Wouldn't you think that the scientists would put this to great use, or some use, like finding the ultimate answers of science or philosophy or theology? But no, they can't be bothered. And the arch-rationalist of the whole book lies to and abandons his only child before sacrificing the life of another child in his experiment. Anyone who chooses a career in science after reading that should be kept away from the knives.

The talking bears I didn't mind. I like talking bears.

I did sort of have an idea that the book was supposed to be symbolic or allegorical in some way, but I never could figure out what was supposed to represent what. For instance, this book is part of a trilogy called "His Dark Materials", a phrase that comes from Milton's Paradise Lost. I never read Paradise Lost, but from the blackboard in Animal House, I recall that it's about the battle between Lucifer and God. Reading the phrase in context, I can't tell if "His Dark Materials" are supposed to be good things or bad things, so that's not much of a clue.

Another puzzle is a major character whose name is an anagram of Israel, which is so unlikely it has to be deliberate. But what does that mean? Israel as God's ancient chosen nation? Or Israel as in the modern nation that is very secular? Or Israel as in the actual guy's name who was the devout father of the 12 children who became the 12 tribes? Or the actual meaning of "Israel" which is "wrestles with God"? You got me. I wish, if people were writing symbolism or allegory, they would include a brief guide in their book – like "X is Karl Marx and Y is the Jesuits" or something – for literal dunderheads like me.

[Gratuitous aside: All this is especially disappointing because I enjoy a book that pokes fun at religion in a way that's understandable and actually makes sense. Like "A Maze of Death" or "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" or "A Canticle for Leibowitz" or "Another Roadside Attraction" or "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". Admittedly, it wasn't as wacky as "DaVinci Code" using The Last Supper to prove Jesus had kids. But still, the big argument goes something like this (SPOILER ALERT!): original sin is something like the sexual awakening of puberty; and puberty is related to a certain substance; therefore, if we can eliminate that substance, we can eliminate original sin. I mean, what? This is not too far off from Monty Python's "if she weighs the same as a duck, she must be made of wood, and therefore is a witch" kind of logic. I kind of hope what I read is wrong, and that wasn't the author's aim, because, if so, he's missed.]

Besides all that, though, I liked it. It's a deeply imagined and well-crafted tale. I would definitely recommend it for people who like steampunk or alternate-world fantasy. It's part of a trilogy, and it ended in a cliffhanger, so I may have to muster the wherewithal to tackle the other two entries in the series. I'll definitely check out the movie.