Most recently, this trilogy’s received favorable mentions on this thread. I read it the first time several months ago, and a new boxed set (with niftier binding than my set, which inspires evil temptations ) is going to be a xmas gift to my sister this year. I liked it very much.
I keep hearing it marketed as a children’s series, but that’s mildly baffled me. Not because I think it’s too advanced or any of that rot–I can definitely see it as being a great read for any bright kid–but from just how damn good it is in general.
The metaphysics of its world resonates personally for me–my faith when most alive sees the world as by its nature full of immanence. So when the scientist speaking to the Powers, when Lyra guides her to it, is told “spirit is what they are, matter is what they do,” that inspires a personal “yup. Nailed it.” I can see that theme irritating those of a more theistic bent, though.
Plus, parts of the setting were just neat. I really liked how people each had a separate, but very connected, “daemon” as separate physical instantiations of a part of their souls. I liked how childrens’ daemons were mercurial, shifting things, and how adults’ settled into a set form, and how that was a major part of growing up on that world.
I thought the second book felt “rushed” in its pacing, with a bit too much stampeding through Will’s introductory bits to get back to Lyra. I really dug the “subtle knife” and what it did, and the one thing that it couldn’t cut.
The ending hurt, but it was good hurt.
Good stuff. Musing on it’s made it move rapidly back up my “to reread ASAP” list.
I was a bright kid when my aunt gave me The Golden Compass for Christmas, and I enjoyed it. Some of the theology went over my head (well, some of the theology still goes over my head), but I did understand some of the references.
I hear they’ve sold the movie rights. Is there any chance it won’t suck?
I greatly enjoyed the first two books, but the third volume was a disappointment; it didn’t live up to the first two. If anyone’s interested I suppose I could elaborate on why I didn’t like the third, but I’d want to go back and look at it again first.
I absolutely loved it. A friend lent me the books and I read all of them and got pissed because there weren’t any more to read. I personally think the last book is the absolute best, but all of them are excellent. It was so sad, I almost wanted to cry.
I understood most of the theology, and I managed the metaphysics, but I think the best part is just the pure magic of it.
I wanted to buy the books but when I came across them in Barnes and Noble I was ten dollars short.:smack:
I loved the first book, liked the second one (but thought it suffered from middle-chapter syndrome), and ended up disliking the third. I found the ending to be heavy handed, obeying the dictates of the All-Powerful Author and not the characters. I could feel a talented writer locked in a mighty struggle with a fundamentalist preacher (an atheist fundamentalist preacher, but a fundamentalist preacher nonetheless.) The fundamentalist preacher won, sadly, and the characters lost.
sigh What Wumpus said. So much promise, and it just fell apart at the end. Offhand I can’t think of a single other series that disappointed me so thoroughly in its end (but keep in mind, that’s because I loved the first two books).
By the by, you should under no circumstances ever read any interview with Philip Pullman. The fundie preacher comes out in full force.
I liked the third volume – I thought it was the culmination of what Pullman had been setting up in the first two books. I was halfway through it when I insisted a friend of mine read the series, and he HATED the third book and got really p-oed at me for recommending it. He thought it was anti-Christian (which, since I’m not a Christian, and he’s not real rah-rah about it, I thought was interesting.) I stand by it, though – the ending was sad, but I was okay with it.
I couldn’t judge Pullman’s views my own self. I really liked how science was ‘experimental theology’ in Fundieville. SHows how they think, y’know.
Thanks.
For all that Pullman’s bitched about how he hates C.S. Lewis for preaching, Pullman’s series preached about his…um…worldview… far more than the Narnia stuff ever dreamed of doing.
Now, I don’t really see this. I’ve googled through a few tonight, and he comes across as a bright person, well-spoken, with an ego that could stand to lose some girth, and strong views of the sort that make for better apologetics than, er, non-apologetics–in that way, I think he’s probably a lot more like Lewis than he’d ever admit to in this life.
Which reminds me of the need to pick up a set of Narnia again to reread, actually.
Well…they had their charm. The writing was beautiful and vivid and all that, and I enjoyed some of the concepts, particularly the way the author presented the bears. They possessed such an eerie—unhuman—aura about them, which somehow seems more realistic than, say, C.S. Lewis’s Talking Animals.
The trilogy had many high points. I’ll even go to say that The Golden Compass was one continuous high. Everything about it seemed just right, and Pullman certainly deserves kudos for that one. The ending was fascinating, leaving so much promise. But what’s with that subtle knife? How can a group of philosophers make a knife that’s capable of slicing across the Planck length to open dimensional windows?? Ah, better stop before I get going. Still, it’s a captivating idea and makes for a good book.
The ending was what really stunk though. After all this buildup, where the fate of all intelligent life hangs in the balance, the universes are saved by two teens screwing each other? Admittedly, the ending was moving, even if it should have been different.
In one interview, Philip Pullman said he wrote these books primarily for a younger audience though they were meant for adults too. He pointed out that he left in little hints and innuendos, such as (if I remember right) in the scene where a witch was telling of her meeting with Lord Asriel. He entered her chamber, then the narrative says something like: “everyone knew what followed.” So these books can be experienced and enjoyed on multiple levels… But the ending was still a disappointment.
The Authority was senile, with his Aides running the world?
Truth and Virtue (who the kids stood for) setting the universe back on track, only to be cruelly separated, knowing that they cannot exist apart, but it would destroy one of them to be together?
How could this be a bad ending?
Life isn’t a happy ever after, and that even saving the universe comes with a great price.
I liked these books a lot. And I like that Pullman rarely pulls punches (when dealing with death, for instance), particularly in The Subtle Knife.
TwistofFate, I agree with you that this series is no “happily ever after tale”. I liked the ending, too, but I’ll reserve judgement on it being the best ever.
The only other thing I’ve read by Pullman is a small, beautifully illustrated (by Leonid Gore) book called Clockwork. It’s a fairy tale of sorts, I suppose, and is shot through with wonderful strangeness.
It’s interesting how reasonable people see things totally differently.
For my part, the ending being “just two kids screwing each other” was only that superficially. In the book’s mythology, it was two people who had suffered and grown together repairing an old error in Eden. I.e., not yearning helplessly backwards, but moving from innocence into experience, not as a punishment but as a natural process. (Certainly an ideological ax to grind going on there, but no more or less than Lewis’ own axes, IMO.) If the book had ended right there, that would have cheesed me off, but it went on to their separation–only forced by necessity of what was right, not imposed by an external authority.
I dunno about best ending ever, though. A pronounced lean to the “good” side of the axis, but the needle was’nt nearly buried.
I agree with Drastic, plus I’ve watched too much anime to let such an ending bother me. Although I have to admit I had Hitomi’s theme from Escaflowne running through my head at that section.
) is going to be a xmas gift to my sister this year. I liked it very much.