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Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.
mene: "The Willowmere Chronicles" series includes daemons, but focusing more on the Ancient Greek version.
"His Dark Materials" series has a parallel world where everyone has a daemon, but in a different way than the daemons in the Willowmere Chronicles.
Jannes: Similar themes: parallel worlds, dimension-traveling youths, splendid cities... Pullman's work is, in my opinion, far superior, but both are worth checking out if you like this sort of thing.
This book had everything to be a good story, but I guess my hopes were too high. I loved the idea of daemons, but in the end Pantalaimon is just a "imaginary" friend. The book as so many little adventures that Lyra ends ups as having just a too eventful trip... This book reminded me the description that a friend make about the LotR movie. "Just two guys going from point A to point B". In this case is a little girl and her pet daemon. Also reminded me of the last Harry Potter. Same problem. Most of the book is going from one place to another and then something happens...
And all that stuff about Dust, and right and wrong, and fate (and the little scientific details about quantum mechanics and the theory of the multiverse, love the science, hate the way Pullman used it), boring and cryptic... ( )
I'm not really sure... I don't think I would have caught the growing up metaphor without Pullman's essays. I'm going to have to finish the trilogy to really see the whole picture. I think this would have made a great read aloud with my kids when they were little. ( )
I was worried going into this one thinking I might not like it as much as I did as a younger reader, but why was I even worried? Daemons, witches, fighting polar bears, this book is SO MUCH FUN! ( )
By far the best of the trilogy, but the subject matter is really not for young kids. Pretty distressing actually, esp. at the end. The movie really glossed over the harshness and then ended before the very worst, so don't be misled by that and think it would be OK for a 9 year old--14 is more like it. ( )
I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. The mythology is imaginative, well realized, and uses some really great iconography. The animal daemons are a great conceit, and I love the imagery of Dust. The individual characters are well filled out, as are the larger nations/cultures. At times the exposition is a bit blunt, I suppose— Iorek telling Lyra that his armor is his soul, e.g., or Lord Asriel explaining the power inherent in the daemon bond. But that bluntness has been typical of every fantasy/sci-fi book I've ever read, and it's handled as deftly here as I've seen in any other. Overall, this was a fun, engaging read, and I can't wait for my kids to read it so we can share a discussion. ( )
Into this wild abyss, The womb of nature and perhaps her grave, Of neither sea, not shore, nor air, nor fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mixed Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless the almighty maker them ordain, His dark materials to create more worlds, Into this wild abyss the wary fiend Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while, Pondering his voyage...
— John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II
Dedication
First words
Lyra and her dæmon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.
Quotations
We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not...or die of despair.
...this was in the seventeenth century. Symbols and emblems were everywhere. Buildings and pictures were designed to be read like books. Everything stood for something else.; if you had the right dictionary you could read Nature itself.
Last words
So Lyra and her dæmon turned away from the world they were born in and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky.
Originally published as Northern lights in the UK and in the USA as The golden compass (from a title submitted to the publisher). Translations into other languages have used both, including Het noorderlicht (Dutch), La bussola d'oro (Italian) and Der goldene Kompass (German).
This is the record for the unabridged book and associated unabridged audio-books. Other versions, including abridgements, the BBC radio drama (2003), the movie (2007), the TV series (2019), each have their own records. Please distinguish between them.
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.
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Book description
In a universe somewhat like our own, children are beginning to disappear from cities around England. For Lyra Belacqua, a half-wild orphan girl living at Jordan College, Oxford, the kidnappings are just another excuse for games, battles and tall stories - until her best friend Roger is reported missing. Vowing to rescue him, Lyra embarks upon a journey to the savage North, where physicists and theologians alike are conducting controversial research into the nature of something known only as 'Dust'. Apart from her friends the gyptians, her only guide is a curious golden instrument called an alethiometer. If she is to survive her ordeal, she will have to learn to interpret its cryptic and peculiar messages. 432
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Book Discussion: The Golden Compass - SPOILER FREE thread
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I loved the idea of daemons, but in the end Pantalaimon is just a "imaginary" friend.
The book as so many little adventures that Lyra ends ups as having just a too eventful trip...
This book reminded me the description that a friend make about the LotR movie. "Just two guys going from point A to point B". In this case is a little girl and her pet daemon. Also reminded me of the last Harry Potter. Same problem. Most of the book is going from one place to another and then something happens...
And all that stuff about Dust, and right and wrong, and fate (and the little scientific details about quantum mechanics and the theory of the multiverse, love the science, hate the way Pullman used it), boring and cryptic... (