The Golden Compass: Doubt, Danger, And Fathomless Mysteries

Trust me for a moment.

Please beg, borrow, or purchase a copy of The Golden Compass. It's out in paperback, list price ten dollars; I got my copy for seven dollars through a reseller..

When you get hands on it, please don't read it right away. You will want to make special preparations before you open the first page. You will need the following items, at minimum.

* A blanket. I don't know where you usually read. I like to read in bed, myself, or on the couch, and I have blankets handy both places. If there is not a blanket where you read, please procure one.

* A hot beverage of some sort. Coffee, if you must. Tea is preferable; I like Bigelow's Constant Comment, myself. Hot chocolate is ideal. Tomato soup will do in a pinch, but chicken noodle is too distracting.

* Snacks. I like Danish butter cookies, myself; or Scottish shortbread. Popcorn is a very good idea, come to think of it.

* Soft lighting. If you can read The Golden Compass by firelight, please do so. This is not the sort of book to be read under the hot sun at the beach, or in an airplane, or anywhere with fluorescent lights. If you can't arrange firelight, you can get by with a small anbaric lamp. (Anbaric? Excuse me, I must have used a word that doesn't exist.)

* Something cuddly (optional). If you can arrange to have a kitten in your lap, you're in good shape. If you have a small child who will sit still and be read to long enough, even better.

I mention all this to do three things. First, I want to avoid talking about the plot and the characters and the central premise of The Golden Compass for as long as I can, on the good and sound premise that the less you know about the book going in, the more you will enjoy the surprises.
Second, this book is something special, and you will want to remember where you were and what you were doing when you opened up that first page.

Thirdly, and most importantly, this is the kind of book that, if you are a feeling, thinking person at all, will provide you with some delicious spine-tingling chills. Add that to the fact that the last half of the book takes place in the Arctic, under the sparkling glow of the Northern Lights, and you have a book that deserves, begs, cries out to be read in the wintertime, by a reader who has taken every precaution to protect himself or herself from the frosty winter weather.

When you're ready, open to the first page, which lists the many awards that the book has won, and econiums from various sources. There should also be praise for the sequel, The Subtle Knife, and perhaps the third volume of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. (My version has a quote praising the second book from Lloyd Alexander, who wrote the praiseworthy The Chronicles of Prydain, which was a good enough endorsement for me.)

The Golden Compass promises a "a universe like ours, but different in many ways," and delivers on that promise. The author, Philip Pullman, begins the tale at Oxford, and any echoes of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are more than just coincidental. However, The Golden Compass is not a sword-and-sorcery epic; it takes place in a reasonable facsimile of our world rather than in Narnia or Middle-Earth. (In fact, The Golden Compass resembles nothing so much as Lewis's That Hideous Strength, although it shades the moral rights and wrongs of its characters much more subtly than Lewis does.)

The Golden Compass also has a child hero, Lyra Belacqua, who is nine years old, and has a formidable destiny before her. She is a child of Jordan College, Oxford, and is described to us as a half-wild barbarian, equally at home pelting the village children with dirt clods as she is eavesdropping on the conversation of the Scholars. Lyra is bright and inquisitive while being brave and resourceful, and gifted with a talent for creative deceit far beyond her years. (If you've ever wished for a young female hero in a classic fantasy novel, your wish has been granted in full.) Pullman describes her as having an incomplete map of the world -- "largely eaten by mice", as he puts it -- which makes her the perfect observer of the world as she sees it, a world none of us has ever seen until now.

Lyra's world is recognizable, but different. For example, recognizable in that there is a Christian Church, but different in that somehow, John Calvin succeeded to the Papacy. (It is worth noting that Calvin and Otto von Zeppelin are the only historical characters that the worlds seem to have in common, with the possible exception of Henry Hudson.) The possibilities of a Calvinist Catholic Church are only hinted at; it's not necessary to have any knowledge of or interest in theology to enjoy The Golden Compass.

I can see that I've left almost everything out. I have carefully not discussed daemons, and what they are, and the role they play in the book. Nothing about the plot, and how wonderfully twisty it is, and all of the doubt, danger and mystery that the book contains (and that the sequel promises). Nothing about the characters; their depth, their strength, the lovely shades of moral ambiguity that Pullman draws. (I will say how gratifying it is to have a Texan character in a British fantasy novel.) Nothing about Pullman's prose style, which is like an icicle; clear, sharp, crisp, bracing. Actually, this is a grave omission, so I'll treat you to a glimpse:

Far ahead, and a little below, the long rope extended from the suspension ring of the balloon, pulled by six or seven witches sitting on their cloud-pine branches. The stars shone bright and cold and hard as diamonds.

"Why en't you cold, Serafina Pekkala?"

"We feel cold, but we don't mind it, because we will not come to harm. And if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn't feel other things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the aurora, or best of all the silky feel of moonlight on our skin. It's worth being cold for that."

Wrap yourself up in a blanket, sip some hot chocolate, and read this book, visit this magical world. Trust me on this.