Northern Lights: Philip Pullman’s Lyra, Dust and the Journey to the Frozen North
The first book of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, published as Northern Lights in Britain and The Golden Compass in the United States, is a rich, deep brew delivered through the gripping story of Lyra Belacqua, an orphan who travels from an alternative Oxford, lit by naphtha lamps and crossed by airships, to the frozen North to rescue her friend Roger from the child-snatchers.
Author: Philip Pullman (born 1946, Norwich)
Title: Northern Lights (1995); US title The Golden Compass
Format: English paperback (Scholastic), 448 pages
Scope: His Dark Materials 1; winner of the Carnegie Medal
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/1407130226 (ASIN 1407130226)
Dust and the Magisterium
From there she is drawn into a deeper mystery involving her uncle, the explorer Lord Asriel, his discovery of elementary particles known as Dust, and possible parallel worlds that the all-controlling Magisterium wants to keep hidden. Out of that come questions about the value of organised religion, the corruption of authority, the ambiguity of truth, what we mean by souls, and other moral and theological matters.
The Opening Episodes
The opening covers the kidnapping of the gyptian boy Billy and his people’s journey upriver to find him, the attempt at Jordan College to poison Lord Asriel, Lyra’s discovery of Dust, Asriel’s abandonment of her, her acquisition of the precious alethiometer, the arrival of Mrs Coulter in her life and Lyra’s acceptance of the offer to become her assistant. She and Mrs Coulter board an airship and set off for London, where her glamorous new friend promises to find the missing Roger. All the while, the Magisterium, its emissaries and its powers hum in the background.
Daemons
The book’s most original idea is the daemon. In Lyra’s world, every person’s soul lives outside the body as an animal companion who talks, thinks and feels. Children’s daemons can change shape; at adolescence they settle into one form that reflects the person’s nature. Lyra’s daemon, Pantalaimon, is her constant friend and conscience, and to separate a person from their daemon is the most horrifying act imaginable, which is exactly what the mysterious Gobblers are doing to children in the far north.
Bears, Witches and Balloons
Lyra’s journey north brings her some of the most memorable companions in children’s literature: Iorek Byrnison, an exiled armoured bear who makes his own armour from sky-iron; Lee Scoresby, a Texan aeronaut with a hot-air balloon; and the witch queen Serafina Pekkala. The climax on Svalbard, the kingdom of the bears, and the revelation of what Lord Asriel intends, end the book on a note that is both thrilling and shocking.
Prizes and Title
Northern Lights won the Carnegie Medal in 1995 and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, and in 2007 it was voted the best Carnegie winner of the award’s first seventy years. The trilogy’s title comes from Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic Pullman consciously answers. The story was filmed in 2007 as The Golden Compass and adapted more fully by the BBC and HBO as a television series (2019–2022). Pullman later returned to Lyra in The Book of Dust, beginning with La Belle Sauvage (2017).
A Modern Classic
This modern fantasy classic is full of thrilling adventures, telling the story of Lyra and, later, Will, two ordinary children on a dangerous journey through shimmering, haunted worlds. They will meet witches and armoured bears, fallen angels and soul-eating Spectres, and in the end the fate of both the living and the dead will depend on them.
Pullman’s trilogy has captivated readers for more than twenty-five years and has been acclaimed throughout. It will make you question everything you know about your world and wonder what really lies beyond your reach.
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