The Star never reviewed any of the books in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy so it decided to correct this oversight by running a review of Northern Lights to coincide with the 6th December release of the New Line Cinema film based on the book (renamed in the States as The Golden Compass to avoid confusing it with Jennifer Donnelly's A Northern Light, this is also the name of the movie).
The reviewer, who loves the books, was not impressed with the film, saying, amongst other things, "they turned it into a cliched good-vs-evil thing, which is NOT what the story is about, and eliminated Pullman's technique of slowly giving out answers - instead they spent pretty much every moment explaining things!!! [It was] so dull and the dialogue was so cliched and completely missed out the variety of voices Pullman has."
I have yet to watch The Golden Compass and I think that even if I decide to, I can wait til it's released on DVD.
Philip Pullman told Roger Sutton, in a Horn Book podcast that, "To be truly happy with [a film adaption of a book] you have to be the director as well as the scriptwriter and the star and the composer and the producer and everything else because the whole nature of the film obviously is collaborative. It’s the work of many, many people and the writer, even of the script, is not at the centre of it. The director is at the centre of it, and the writer of the original book on which the film is based is a long way away from the centre of the action. So inevitably there are things that, as writers, we always think we’d have done that differently, or “I wouldn’t have put the camera here, I’d have put it there."
You can read the entire transcript of the interview here and listen to it here.
Of daemons, witches and armoured bears
NORTHERN LIGHTS
By Philip Pullman
ISBN: 978-0439944663
Publisher: Scholastic
Paperback, 448pages
SOMETIMES you read a best-selling, award-winning book like Northern Lights that’s just so good, that after you’re done you’re flushed with amazement and just want to rush out and tell everyone about it, then marry the author so you can get a cut of the profits (or is that last one just me?).
(But before I go on, let's get something straight. Northern Lights is the title of the first part of Pullman's trilogy called His Dark Materials in Britain but in United States, it's called The Golden Compass, and that's the name of the movie based on the book. It's like how Harry Potter and Philosopher's Stone was renamed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States.)
Set in a parallel world like ours, Northern Lights is revolves around Lyra Belacqua – rescuer, refugee, and betrayer – all heavy roles for an 11-year-old girl to play! It’s also a story about Dust, a mysterious microscopic substance that’s causing a big fuss amongst adults, big enough to drag Lyra into an adventure like no other. And it really is an original adventure.
The way Pullman's done it is like trekking up a mountain, with just enough questions and surprises to keep you going, but slowly ? until suddenly you’ve finished the first part and you’re skiing down one of the smoothest narratives ever.
Part of the smoothness comes from the fact that you’re not aware of Pullman talking anymore. His narrator becomes more and more invisible as he lets the characters do the talking, and then – bang! – you’re in the middle of it all, listening to gyptians, witches, armoured bears, Texans and daemons (animal-like manifestations of people’s souls). Pullman’s characters are all familiar but believable, and their voices interact in a wonderful symphony where the prize-winning solo goes, of course, to Lyra.
Lyra is a masterpiece. She’s a “coarse and greedy little savage” – in other words, she’s a real 11-year-old, a wilful, stubborn kid who makes mistakes and still needs adults. Yes, she can be brave, reckless even, and she has a caring streak, but it’s not because she’s some special Chosen One, it’s because she’s a real person with a real person’s mix of good and bad.
You always get the feeling in fantasy that the heroes are just born extraordinary, but in Lyra’s case it’s more like the extraordinariness is wrenched out of her by extraordinary circumstances.
You can’t help but root for her, especially because she’s so desperately vulnerable. Right from the start there isn't a Obi-Wan Kenobi or Dumbledore hanging around to protect her, and it constantly feels like she’s in over her head.
Unfortunately Pullman spoils the effect a bit by introducing a prophecy about her (I’m starting to think there’s a rule somewhere that fantasy writers have to have prophecies), but even so Lyra doesn’t actually have any magic powers. In fact, magic is surprisingly low profile in her world; even the witches shoot arrows rather than lightning bolts or fireballs.
A lot of the attention fantasy writers usually pay to magic is given instead to technology that mirrors our own. Lyra’s world has things like “coal spirit” (petrol) and “anbaric force” (electricity). It works because most of us know as little about electricity as we do about magic, but it’s much more credible because it’s “scientific”.
Not that they call it science; Lyra’s world is ruled by the dogmatic religiosity of the Magisterium, and science is known as “experimental theology”.
The Magisterium is only one of the factions struggling to control Dust, and this power struggle is particularly chilling because it drags children into the fray. Pullman portrays children as essentially helpless against adults, and while this makes Lyra very credible, it also makes for some very dark moments.
Together with The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, Northern Lights make up the thrilling trilogy. In the other two books Lyra allies herself with 13-year-old Will Parry and travels between worlds in an allusive and intricate plot involving a battle that literally shakes the heavens.
But what sets the trilogy, especially Northern Lights, apart from other fantasies is that it isn’t really a story about good and evil; there is no Dark Lord, only different shades of grey struggling against each other.
Instead this is a story about love. Lyra is filled with it; love is what drives her, fires her, lies behind her fear, her rage, her grief, but also her loyalty, courage and compassion.
Whether that love succeeds in saving her, saving others, or even saving itself is the big mystery, and if you want to find out you’ll just have to pick this excellent series up yourself.
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