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This is a book that has been sitting around the house for a while now – we bought it for Jess last year and she has not got around to reading it yet and with the Golden Compass about to hit the bit torrent networks (err i mean the cinemas of course) I thought it was time to read it.
Now I am not a fan of Philip Pulman the person. I am sick to death of seeing him slagging off teachers and schools and I find it particularly rich when I hear him say teachers are boring. He lectured at our college and i saw him in action once and i can assure you than he is as boring an old git as you can imagine.
however, he would not be the 1st author who is a twat yet still able to put out good books.
I was also interested because he is often held up (and not just by himself) as an example of a ‘good’ author in the literary sense. however, i have to say that i did not feel that his witting was in any way particularly clever or different to any other of the hundreds of other fantasy authors i have read over the years.
the book itself is a good read and has some good moments.. i particularly loved the depiction of the parallel Oxford. I was there for 4 years as a student and he has evoked nicely all the other-worldly, ancient, archaic aspects of oxford while ditching all the shit aspects of it (Bill Bryson was right about one thing in ‘Notes from a Small Island’.. the town planners and populace of oxford should be ashamed of what they have allowed to happen to the place over the years)
the rest is just good old fashioned fantasy yarn aimed at kids.. and you cant go wrong with that now and then. Compared to other fantasy sagas it is very single dimensioned there are no multiple plots which you expect from fantasy books.. if Lyra did not see it then you don’t get to hear of it which can be annoying at times as the author has to engineer some strange plot devices to feed the reader with information.
still its worth a read and i will be getting a hold of the next 2 books at some point
I must read this book. My uber- Christian friend has warned me off it saying it’s ultimately advocating the destruction of God and the castration of children. Sounds fascinating lol – all that from a kid’s book!
i think that sort of stuff comes in the later books – all very tame in the 1st one – though there is a brief explanation of castration towards the end of the 1st book it is a side point to the plot.
Just finished this tonight. I loved it… theres various levels you can read it at… the basic kids adventure yarn being only the most superficial. pullman has to be comended for tackling some incredibly deep issues (the idea of having visible souls being pure genius in this respect) in a very accesible way.
The three books are in the buy 2 get one free sale in borders at the moment so get your arse out there and start reading.
Unfortunately I saw the film before the book… it doesn’t do it justice… big surprise!
His Dark Materials trilogy is brilliant, I can’t comment to much on the first book seeing as I read it about 10 years ago, I remember loving it but its due a reread.
He keeps up the high standard in all three books and unlike many other authors he actually manages to end the series brilliantly.
I really can’t stand people complaining about the book being anti-christian or whatever, some people are just so offended that people have a different opinion to them.
I don’t see the harm even if it is anyway, one of my favorite books is Starship Troopers which is utterly communist but I haven’t tried to crush capitalism after reading it.I don’t really get why it bothers people at all.
Starship troopers was communist? In what way?
From the perspective of the film the society it depicts was fascist in nature, whether you want to read the subtext as being ‘fascism is bad’ or not is up to you – but you cant say that it was pro communist! I havent read the book – but i assume it was similar in outlook.
It was actually more sophisticated than that i think – the fascism it displayed was all very well run… ultimately saved the human race from the bug invasion and had very cool uniforms i.e. not a bad way to live on the face of things.
The fact that the society just didn’t seem right (helped along by those ridiculous government sponsered adverts) makes you think a bit about what is important in the way we run our lives and what is or isn’t acceptable in a moral society. I would come away from the film thinking ‘oh my god i hope we dont go down that route in years to come’ wheras a BNP nutter might come out thinking ‘yes! That is the future for mankind!’
Under-rated film.
@xdc the doc wrote:
pullman has to be comended for tackling some incredibly deep issues (the idea of having visible souls being pure genius in this respect) in a very accesible way.
i have come across this idea before but I have to say that I am not convinced. As a means of showing how daft the idea that humans and humans alone have some counterpart that is part of them but not part of them it works but as a direct metaphor for the christian concept of a soul it does not work very well at all and therefore limits the degree to which comparisons can be made.
The fact the every human has the animal soul doesn’t really back up the theory that the books atheist. Didn’t they use the subtle knife to guide dead souls into heaven as well?
@xdc the doc wrote:Starship troopers was communist? In what way?
From the perspective of the film the society it depicts was fascist in nature, whether you want to read the subtext as being ‘fascism is bad’ or not is up to you – but you cant say that it was pro communist! I havent read the book – but i assume it was similar in outlook.
The only similarity with the two is that they are fighting bugs.
I thought the movie was okay, at the time when those special effects where unseen before, but it shits all over the original story. The book is so much better.
@=xdc= magicker wrote:
@xdc the doc wrote:
pullman has to be comended for tackling some incredibly deep issues (the idea of having visible souls being pure genius in this respect) in a very accesible way.
i have come across this idea before but I have to say that I am not convinced. As a means of showing how daft the idea that humans and humans alone have some counterpart that is part of them but not part of them it works but as a direct metaphor for the christian concept of a soul it does not work very well at all and therefore limits the degree to which comparisons can be made.
I disagree – its a fine counterpart to our idea of what a soul might be like, and I think it is a very simple way to engage your average reader (i.e not well read theologically sophisticated types like yourself) in thinking about some very interesting issues.
I finished the trilogy a couple of weeks ago and have to say i enjoyed it immensely. There were some large plot holes that jarred for me – but if you suspend your disbelief theres still plenty to enjoy.
As for Wet – you are spot on about the tits – for a teenage lad that shower scene is a like mana from heaven 🙂
I think they renamed the book now.
I saw a lady on tube reading a copy of the book. “The Golden Compass” was in huge text with “Northern Lights” written very small at the top.
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