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• Cat-Eyes

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  cateyes
  

  14 years ago

  Fri Dec 04 2009, 11:04am

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  Cat-Eyes

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  cateyes
  

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  14 years ago

  ---

  You may know this book as its American and movie title, The Golden Compass. It is the first in the His Dark Materials series.
  
  Apologies to anyone who this takes by surprise! We forgot to announce it until the Wed, and the people who can update the announcements thread and the title of the OBC thread have been living their actual lives. Hopefully a lot of people have read this book, and if you haven't it's a great read! Feel free to join in on the discussion when you've had a chance to finish, or even start, the book and don't forget you can always keep talking about it after the month has passed! :)
  
  Can everyone please put anything that happens in the sequels, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, in spoiler bars? This thread is specifically about the first book, so whilst the discussion will almost certainly go on tangents, please remember there may be people who have only read the first book :)
  
  Now that we're finished housekeeping, let the discussion begin!
   
• deb

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  Mystic Ward
  

  14 years ago

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  deb

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  14 years ago

  ---

  Ooo I've actually read this one so might finally be able to participate for a change. :P
   
• Paperwings

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  14 years ago

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  Paperwings

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  14 years ago

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  I remember this book, I loved the idea of the daemons in it...I think the whole conception of this series was awesome (trying to avert a minefield of spoilers) so I definitely encourage people to read it.
   
• Sionainn

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  14 years ago

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  Sionainn

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  Guardian

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  14 years ago

  ---

  I only read the first half of this book, then skipped onto the next two :P I had already seen the movie and even though it ended differently I just couldn't get through it for some reason.
  
  I like a lot of Pullman's ideas though and he certainly created a fantastic world but yeah . . . It's not a series I'd read a lot like some others but I still enjoyed it.
   
• Cat-Eyes

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  cateyes
  

  14 years ago

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  Cat-Eyes

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  14 years ago

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  Paperwings - feel free to talk about all sorts of spoilerish things, just put them under a spoiler bar (so write [spoiler]Stuff that is spoiler-ish[ /spoiler] but without the spaces). If could put a heading above it to say what it's a spoiler for that'd be great too, see below for an example of what I mean:
  
  Spoiler For Nothing
  This is not really a spoiler
   
• Cat-Eyes

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  14 years ago

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  Cat-Eyes

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  14 years ago

  ---

  [act]bump[/act] ;)
   
• Zieria

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  Zieria

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  14 years ago

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  I read this a few years ago, and really enjoyed it (more than I did the sequels). Like Paperwings, I loved the idea of the daemons. I guess what I loved about the daemons is that it meant that the people were never truly alone, and also I loved the idea that the shape of their daemon reflects some aspects of their character. I used to really want a daemon, and theorised that mine would be a rabbit. :P
  
  I also loved Lyra in this book, and thought she was a really strong main character.
   
• dolorosa

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  14 years ago

  Sun Dec 27 2009, 11:56am

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  dolorosa

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  14 years ago

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  Are we still discussing this book? This series is my favourite series of books ever, and is responsible for my love of fantasy literature (it wasn't the first fantasy series I read, but the first that convinced me that I preferred the genre above all others). Keeping the discussion limited to Northern Lights, I love everything about the book. I think it's the strongest in the series. Its characterisation is spot on (in the sense that all the characters behave like real people), the world is completely three-dimensional, from the armoured bears to the alternate version of Oxford, and the writing is completely beautiful. Not one word is out of place. Don't even get me started on the themes...these books, Northern Lights in particular (which I first read when I was 12) articulated everything I believed but was unable to articulate, and helped me work out (or at least refine) my personal philosophy and world view.
  
  I could gush for hours, but I will stop. Also, the 2007 film - I pretend it doesn't exist... :(
   
• Cat-Eyes

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  Cat-Eyes

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  14 years ago

  ---

  Dolorosa - yes, we are, but you can also always keep discussing books after their month is over :)
  
  I actually really liked the movie, but I think I'm in the minority...
   
• Arctic Firefox

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  Arctic Firefox

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  14 years ago

  ---

  I'll have to read His Dark Materials again soon, because I was blown away by it the first time. Northern Lights might have been my favourite of the three - not sure any more. I certainly love the worlds he's created; they're full of intrigue and I was often left wanting more detail, more exploration.
  
  As for the movie, I thought it was okay overall, but the ending was horrible. Finishing on a stereotypical Hollywood-feel-good note did a great disservice to the book.
   
• dolorosa

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  dolorosa

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  14 years ago

  ---

  
  I'll have to read His Dark Materials again soon, because I was blown away by it the first time. Northern Lights might have been my favourite of the three - not sure any more. I certainly love the worlds he's created; they're full of intrigue and I was often left wanting more detail, more exploration.
  
  
  

  arcticfirefox

  
  For the past six years or so, Pullman has been working on The Book of Dust, which is meant to go into details about things that he couldn't discuss in the trilogy (how Farder Coram met Serafina Pekkala, etc). We fans have been waiting for years, and may be waiting as long as Ober fans for The Sending, but if he does finish this book, it could be what you're looking for.
  
  There are also two short stories, 'Lyra's Oxford', which is set about four years after The Amber Spyglass, and 'Once Upon A Time In The North', which is about how Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison met.
   
• Nefriit Huijari

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  Nefriit Huijari

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  14 years ago

  ---

  I’ve read this entire series a few times, but the thing I liked most about the first one was that children and adults were competent. Often having a younger character as the protagonist reduces the effectiveness of other characters with a far different age, but that didn’t happen here as far as I could figure. The book quite clearly defines that children aren’t worthless; but not complete either.
  
  Also, I loved the existence of a patriarchal (Panserbjørne) and matrilineal (Witch) society in the same country; existing mostly peacefully. Especially enjoyable for me was the fact that both those societies were uncompromisingly masculine/feminine without being insulting or derogatory.
  
  Moving onto the dæmon issue, I felt it had more downsides than upsides. Yes, people know themselves far better than most people (at least, once they come of age), but in return they can’t be separated from themselves without dying; something that I feel is a bit much. Finally, it’s akin to walking around naked. This might be okay if everyone was doing it, but considering Wills’ power at the end of book three that clearly doesn't happen.
  
  One final thought on Dust. After finishing the series I was a bit disturbed by the idea that this was basically the essence of everyone who’d died before the story happened. It brings up a curious idea, that sentience as we know it can’t exist without some sort of assistance from those who’ve gone before. It was a sort of metaphysical ‘It is not good to be alone’ moment for me, if that makes sense.
   
• dolorosa

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  dolorosa

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  14 years ago

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  In terms of your thoughts on Dust (please note this spoiler is for the whole series, not just Northern Lights)
  
  Dust is not the essence of the dead. Dust is the embodiment of human consciousness, ie the stuff that makes us human. As one of the characters says, 'Dust is what happens when matter [ie living things] began to understand itself [ie to become conscious]'. It's a metaphor springing from the whole 'Dust thou art, and to dust thou will return' idea in Genesis (or at least the version of Genesis in Lyra's world - that is, after Adam and Eve fell, they became conscious and they became human. That's why Dust doesn't settle on pre-pubescent children: according to Pullman's concept, they're not completely conscious until they become teenagers.
  
  Does that make sense?
   
• Nefriit Huijari

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  14 years ago

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  Yes, I suppose that makes sense. Looking at the story in that way, it makes quite a bit more sense. Although, if in that world Adam and Eve weren't conscious, then does that mean angels were involved in their becoming conscious? It would be interesting if Pullman wrote a short story about that first choice amongst humans in his universe.
   
• dolorosa

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  dolorosa

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  14 years ago

  ---

  Again, spoilers are for the entire series, not just Northern Lights.
  
  I think the thing with Dust is that conscious humans 'make' it, not the other way around. That is, until Adam and Eve 'fell', there was no Dust. But Pullman also emphasises the whole through the series that the Adam and Eve story (and other things like it) are metaphors, not reality. As Lord Asriel says, when explaining it to Lyra at the end of Northern Lights, 'Think of Adam and Eve as an imaginary number, like the square root of minus one. They didn't actually exist, but they're a point from which we can derive and explain lots of important stuff'. Does that make sense?
  
  So for him, the story of the Fall is a story that explains how we came be human, not something that actually happened.
  
  The thing to remember is that humans make Dust, not the other way around. There were angels before there were humans (The Authority, the God-like figure in the series, is, in Pullman's world, only the first angel), but they exist in a kind of symbiotic relationship with humans: humans make Dust (ie angels) by being human, and so angels/Dust can't exist without conscious human beings.