The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman

Wow My last post was in December beginning!! Days going busy busy with house shifting and setting up…phew..

Haven’t been reading much these days. Did pick up “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Philip Pullman, and have been reading that on and off. Finished the first part – Golden Compass and have begun with the second part – Subtle knife.

Lyra, a 11 year old girl who is the protagonist of this story is supposedly a blessed child, destined to bring about huge powerful changes in the world. She is shown to be curious, bold, with great intuitive powers. This story is set in an universe parallel to ours. And here the human beings have a inseparable part of themselves called daemon, which generally is in a form of an animal. This daemon is actually a part of the person, so if it is separated from the person by some power, it kinda means a death like life for the person or even death. Phew. Also this world has witches and talking bears. Anyway, so the story has a plot in which few bad goons led by Mrs Coulter, who is utmost charming and cunning at the same time, are conducting some experiments on kids to separate their daemons. All this because it is somehow related to “Dust”, which is never fully explain in the book [and that is why the second and third parts exist ;-) ]. All that I could gather was that “Dust”  is somehow related to “Original Sin”.

Then there is another main character Lord Asriel who is very enigmatic and charismatic. He has succeeded in opening a passage to another parallel world and has gone into it. The Northern lights which we see in our world, are also seen in theirs, just that when they see northern lights, they see a reflection of parallel worlds in it. And that is where Lord Asriel has gone into, followed by Lyra who at such a small age wants to make sense of all of it J

And why the name “Golden Compass”??Thats cuz Lyra gets a compass like instrument, called Alethiometer, which can answer any question asked to it. Asking the Question, and understanding the answer is the tricky part, as this instrument comprises of dials and various symbols. Not everyone can read the instrument but our protagonist does that with ease relying on her intuition. I guess that’s where this book got this title.

It was a fine read, a simple fantasy story with few imaginary creatures, some drama some adventure and not much twists and turns. But not too “dark” ;-) Not recommended for people of my age group. Its kinda kiddish J But nevertheless I’l continue reading the second and third part as well and post about it J