The Golden Compass

Last year they announced that Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials would be adapted into a new miniseries, because everything has to be a TV show nowadays. In fact, The Underground Railroad, which I read last month, is also being adapted into a miniseries, which, actually, I think will be interesting because the book has well-contained episodes and I think could have really striking visuals if adapted. In any case, I’d been thinking of re-reading the Pullman books since the adaptation was announced. So far I’ve reread the first book, the Golden Compass. 

I’ve always liked these books, but on the reread I was especially impressed by how well the book was written. It’s set in an alternate earth that’s pretty substantially different, and Pullman chooses to switch up terms (anbaric for electric, Muscovites for Russians, coal-silk for nylon), but he has absolute trust in the reader and never condescendingly explains how his world is set up or all the clever substitutions he came up with. Instead, he lets the reader discover the world as it unfolds and figure out the tricks on their own. For a kid’s book, this is impressive but also smart: as a fan of these books as a kid, I loved being able to put together the hints and also being taken seriously enough to leave those hints as hints. There are some infodumps, of course, mostly around what daemons are, but most of those are spaced out through the book, because Lyra is discovering them with us. But these explanations make sense — after the basic rules are set out at the start, the book dabbles out the further details as they come into the plot, and every bit is exciting because we want to know how the world works. In this book at least, the real explanations for what is happening remain elusive, but the outline is traced out enough to give a good idea of where the series is headed. And the world building engages the reader emotionally, setting them up for the proper emotional impact in the sequels.

The writing is strong beyond just the way the world building is conveyed. Pullman has a good sense of character and setting description. The characters are all distinctive — and he does a good job of conveying their complex motivations, but does so lightly, without defining any character too tightly. The central conflict set up appears to be simply good vs evil for most of the book, but at the end is revealed to be multipolar, with different groups acting perpendicularly to each other, some of which we understand, and some of which we don’t. This is complex, let alone for a children’s book. The characters’ positioning among the different factions is uncertain, because they are themselves uncertain. But Lyra acts as the moral center: when Lee Scoresby asks Serafina Pekkala, “would you mind telling me whose side I’m on in this invisible war?” she answers “We are both on Lyra’s side.” Lyra tries to find her own moral path among all the adults trying to use and control her. 

Best of all, there aren’t any big villain monologues about how they can see the truth about the world no one else can’t, even though a few characters are well-positioned to do so. 

I think some of this good writing will be less crisp in the later books, where Pullman’s ambition means he spends more time explaining what his series is about, and there are a few too many characters to keep them all so sharply drawn in just a few paragraphs, but in the first book at least the balance of simplicity and hinting at hidden complexities is really on point. I think I’ve realized this is one of the things I really like in fiction: good writing that lets the reader understand the implications and subtexts in the story. Pullman does this partially through the behavior of the daemons, which throughout reflect the inner feelings and emotions of the characters but in a way that isn’t underlined explicitly most times it happens. 

I think the other appeal is the basic theme of the book. At it’s base the idea is ‘the original sin is good.’ At the end of the book Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon decide that if all the adults think Dust (which is associated with puberty/knowledge) is bad, and all the adults are people who try to control Lyra and do atrocious things in order to make Dust go away, then Dust must actually be good. This is great! For one thing, sin is a terrible concept and sex and such are actually good things. And then, it’s also about questioning authority figures — in this case Lyra’s parents. Lyra doesn’t want to accept handed down conceits, and decides instead to figure out what’s right for herself. And then goes on adventure where she ends up recreating the original sin, which saves the world. Pretty great stuff.