Book Review: Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

Also known as The Golden Compass in the States, this is one amazing book set in a world where the human soul resides outside the body as a ‘daemon’ (in the shape of an animal). We meet a young girl named, Lyra Belacqua, who journeys to the Northern Lights to fulfill an old prophesy. Northern Lights is the first in the trilogy His Dark Materials.

Review of Northern Lights

Northern Lights tells the story of Lyra Belacqua who lives in Jordan college, Oxford in a world very much like our own. The difference being that every person’s soul is a living animal companion or ‘daemon’ who accompanies him/her everywhere. How wonderful is that? You have a friend for life who knows all your thoughts and with whom you can talk about anything in the world.  The daemon can take any form until its human counterpart attains puberty, after which it becomes the animal it chooses to be. What more is needed to pique your interest in this one?

Lyra is an orphan and leads a carefree life until she overhears a conversation about ‘Dust’. Intrigued by ‘Dust’ she wishes to know more about it. Her wish is about to come true when children (including Lyra’s playmate Roger) start disappearing and the exotic Mrs. Coulter arrives at Oxford to take Lyra away and to prune her into a fine lady. Together with her own daemon Pantalaimon, Lyra begins her journey to the Arctic, armed with an ‘alethiometer’ or a ‘truth-teller’ to find her friend Roger, kidnapped by the ‘Gobblers’ and to free Lord Asriel who has been imprisoned for conducting experiments on Dust who he believes holds the key to travel to parallel universes. On the way she meets the Gyptians, witches of the clan of Serafina Pekkala and an armoured polar bear, Iorek, who unite to help her towards the destiny she was prophesied to fulfill.

There are a few instances where the book takes subtle pricks at the idea of God and theology and cloaks itself in an anti-church theme. A Magisterium controls the lives of people thus giving the Church’s rulers ultimate power. It decides truth and heresy by commanding the various sub agencies under it. This is a book that would appeal to both children and adults though I feel some ideas in it are better suited for adults. But the imaginative world that Pullman creates is spectacular without doubt.

Dive into the pages and out spills memorable characters, elegant settings and periodical twists all wound in a dreamy style of writing. I loved this book. I saw the movie first, but the book is even more engaging and amazing. I read this last year and had to re-read it for the Christmas season. I couldn’t put it down until I devoured the whole of it, so I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves fantasy, or even to those who don’t.

This book is followed by The Subtle Knife (read review) and The Amber Spyglass (read review) which chronicle the rest of Lyra’s journey.

Title : Northern Lights
Author : Philip Pullman
Publisher: Scholastic
Published : 2011 (First in 2005)
Language: English
Pages : 397
Rating : 5/5