From the Bookshelf of McNeese State University LIBS 210: Technical Services in Libraries…

[close] BORING! The worst book I ever read! The setting of this high fantasy novel is another parallel world similar to earth, but where people have daemons (pronounced demons). There are many Biblical and literary allusions in the novel, and to The Church and Pope John. (Examples: There is a quote in the beginning from John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the subtitle is His Dark Materials. Lyra is chased away from the fruit trees in the garden by the Church officials.) So the astute reader realizes from ...more BORING! The worst book I ever read! The setting of this high fantasy novel is another parallel world similar to earth, but where people have daemons (pronounced demons). There are many Biblical and literary allusions in the novel, and to The Church and Pope John. (Examples: There is a quote in the beginning from John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the subtitle is His Dark Materials. Lyra is chased away from the fruit trees in the garden by the Church officials.) So the astute reader realizes from the beginning that there is a religious or anti-religious theme.

Critique: First, I'm not sure Publisher's Weekly and I read the same novel. If Philip Pullman's goal in writing this novel was to be the antithesis of C.S. Lewis's Narnia Series, then he has succeeded. (This is alluded to by the use of a quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost in the front of the novel.) Lewis's Great Divorce was a response to Milton's Paradise Lost where Lewis claimed that Milton had "married heaven and hell," and Lewis wrote that the two could not be one. I believe Pullman also used the wardrobe (like Lewis to connect the parallel worlds). The Catholic League and Evangelicals were concerned about The Golden Compass because Pullman had stated in interviews that "Christianity is a mistake, a powerful and seductive mistake, but a mistake all the same." Certainly Pullman is entitled to his opinion, but I believe that God and true Christianity can stand on their own against any judgment that Pullman brings against them. Normally I have difficulty putting a good book down---not so with this one. I found the book rather boring. I was not invested in the character of Lyra or any of the characters in the novel. The novel is plot driven, and I found the characters to be static and uninteresting---at best.