The Golden Compass (Raheem Malik)

The Golden Compass
Philip Pullman
Laurel-Leaf Books
351 Pages


I found this book in the South Hadley High School library.

Summary:

The Golden Compass is about a girl named Lyra. She lives in a parallel universe. In this world people’s souls are outwardly represented in the form of daemons. These are generally animals. Lyra is given a golden compass which can help her predict the future or see things from the past. Her friend Roger is captured by a group of people who remove children’s daemons from them and Lyra must travel to the north to try and rescue him. On her way she encounters many different people that try to help or harm her. She is captured by the organization, called the Gobblers, that has taken Roger. She manages to free all of the children from their captivity. She then rescues her father, Lord Asriel, who had been doing experiments on “dust” while he was captured. Dust is the representation of original sin. It is believed by the Gobblers that cutting a daemon away from a child may keep them free from sin. When a daemon is cut away enough energy is produced to open a gateway to another world. Lord Asriel takes Roger to a mountain top and cuts away his daemon. The sky opens and Lord Asriel travels to another world to find and destroy the source of the dust. Lyra decides that she must follow him into this new world.

The audience for this book is anyone who enjoys fantasy stories filled with suspense and adventure.

Pullman’s writing style is intricate and descriptive. He uses many similes and metaphors. He also uses a lot of imagery to vividly describe his ideas to the reader.

“The idea hovered and shimmered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in case it burst. But she was familiar with the way of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else.” (143)


Passages:

"Witches own nothing, so we're not interested in preserving value or making profits, and as for the choice between one thing and another, when you live for many hundreds of years, you know that every opportunity will come again.” (247)

I related this passage to humans rather than witches. We all have very difficult choices to make at times in our lives. This passage made me think that many times the decision is not as difficult as it seems because there is always going to be something that we feel is even more important.

“That's the duty of the old," said the Librarian," to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.” (132)

This passage really stuck in my head. It is very true in the world today. Adults are always anxious about their children’s lives and the children are usually annoyed by it.

“I see the Master as a man having terrible choices to make; whatever he chooses will do harm, but maybe if he does the right thing, a little less harm will come about than if he chooses wrong. God preserve me from having to make that sort of choice.” (59)

I’m not exactly sure why this passage struck me, but it did. When I read it I thought of any person that has power. No matter what decisions they make people will always criticize them. It shows how hard it can be to be in a position of power.

How I interacted with the book:

This book made me think of many different things. It showed how power can corrupt anyone and that you should not judge others that you do not know. I related the various power struggles in the novel to the world today. Many people want to be very powerful. Just like in The Golden Compass, people will do what ever they have to in order to become more powerful. Greed and selfishness can cause good people to become evil.