From the Bookshelf of 2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge…

The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)

Philip Pullman

Start date: March 1, 2012

Finish date: March 31, 2012

Discussion leader: Johanna

Why we're reading this: Group Read
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Apr 13, 2018 Jane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, middle-school, fantasy

I had never read this book, and now that I have, I can't believe I didn't share it with my sons. It's an involved, exciting allegory/fantasy/adventure...It took me fifty pages to be swept away. And, even though the winter seems to have lasted forever on the east coast of the US, the cold was a thrilling part of this novel. I loved the main character, Lyra. What a wonderful female heroine. She is feisty, daring, adventurous and smart. Phillip Pullman created the kind of protagonist I want to shar I had never read this book, and now that I have, I can't believe I didn't share it with my sons. It's an involved, exciting allegory/fantasy/adventure...It took me fifty pages to be swept away. And, even though the winter seems to have lasted forever on the east coast of the US, the cold was a thrilling part of this novel. I loved the main character, Lyra. What a wonderful female heroine. She is feisty, daring, adventurous and smart. Phillip Pullman created the kind of protagonist I want to share with girls and women. More to share.

Daemons, animals which shift-shape , and serve as their human's soul, in a way, are important characters in the story. Lyra wants to touch Farder Coram's daemon, a golden eyed, richly furred, elegant and twice as big as a real cat. "Daemons might touch each other, of course, or fight; but the prohibition against human-daemon contact went so deep, that even in battle no warrior would touch and enemy's daemon. It was utterly forbidden."

Lyra talks to a seaman about her own daemon, Pantalaimon. "Why do daemons have to settle? I want Pantalaimon to be able to change forever. So does he." "Ah, they always have settled and they always will. That's part of growing up. There'll come a time when you'll be tired of his changing about, and you'll want a settled kind of form for him." "I never will!" "Oh, you will. You'll want to grow up like all the other girls. Anyway, there's compensations for a settled form." " What are they?" "Knowing what kind of person you are. Take old Belisaria. She's a seagull and that means I'm a kind of seagull too. I'm not grand or splendid nor beautiful, but I'm a tough old thing and I can survive anywhere and always find a bit of food and company. That's worth knowing that is. And when your daemon settles, you'll know the sort of person you are. But suppose your daemon settles into a shape you don't like?" "Well, then you're discontented, en't you? There's plenty of folks as'd like to have a lion as a daemon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they're going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is." But it didn't seem to Lyra that she would ever grow up.

We are all subject to the fates, but we must all act as if we are not," said the witch, "or die of dispair." this whole passage on 310 is crucial to the story. Such wonderful theme and characters...reminds me of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. ...more

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