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The Golden Compass Is Coming!

Get ready, folks! The Golden Compass is almost here!

The movie, which looks to be an absolutely stunning fantasy, will be released on December 7, 2007 – just a couple of weeks. Of course, I’m just judging that opinion on the trailer and secondary items I’ve read. I have not yet been able to get my hands on the book – stuck in the house with Thanksgiving guests and all that.

So, I’d like to hear from people who have read the book, The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman. In the United Kingdom, it’s entitled Northern Lights.

What did you think of the book, and what do you think we can expect of the film?

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Date: November 24, 2007

Author: Curious Sam

Categories: fun, media, reviews

Tags:

(365 votes, average: 2.98 out of 5)

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• 

  jclifford

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 05:53

  Now, someone just came along and gave this article a rating of ONE STAR – without bothering to say what they think of the book.

  That suggests to me that someone has it in for The Golden Compass, without wanting to explain why. What’s going on with that?

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• 

  Jim

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 08:54

  I have read the book. It’s actually part of a His Dark Materials trilogy, and I’ve read the trilogy. Read it. It will make the fundamentalists vomit, but by your moniker I’m assuming you’re not a fundamentalist. The characters are nuanced beyond the good/bad dichotomy of Tolkien and Harry Potter. The pacing is bracing, and the story avoids formula. Yeah, read it, read it, read it. You can buy the trilogy all as one book, by the way.

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• 

  Peregrin Wood

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 09:44

  Dear me. It seems that some Christians are trying to force publishers to stop allowing the author of the Golden Compass to publish his works. Why? Because his fantasy books, his fictional books, disagree with their theology.

  Galileo redux.

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• 

  Iroquois

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 12:04

  Based on the stilted 17th century Oliver Cromwellian view of religion in Milton’s dreary Paradise Lost, which the author was fixated on? Eewww. But then Jim did like Pride and Prejudice too.

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• 

  Jim

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 12:15

  Well, have you actually read the books, Iroquois, or are you commenting on my comment on a book without having read the book again? I think you would find the third book especially enjoyable for its vision of spirituality as distinct from organized religiosity.

  If you had read the books, you’d know the author’s disdain for the Cromwellian restriction of women’s civic involvement and imposition of puritanical Biblical mandates. If you didn’t get that, you clearly haven’t cracked open page one.

  Try actually reading the books. Then you can give me a hard time.

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• 

  Iroquois

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 13:34

  No, I haven’t read it. I don’t agree you have to read something to make a meaningful comment.

  And what do you mean by using a weasel word like “again”? Our truce is off, then?

  Milton was a Puritan and supported Cromwell–extreme 400 years ago and extreme now. Doesn’t it seem rather odd for Pullman to be so fixated on some little piece of British historical trivia?

  My remarks are rather lengthy, so I put them in a separate post:
  http://irregulartimes.com/diaries/2007/11/is-the-golden-compass-hate-speech/

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• 

  Jim

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 13:44

  No, actually, your remarks there aren’t lengthy. You cut and pasted someone else’s spoilers.

  “Again” is not a weasel word. This is the second time that you have written here about a book that you have not actually read. And so “again” pops up.

  By calling the book Cromwellian, you show very clearly the peril of writing on a subject when you don’t know the thing you’re writing about. The book has an anti-Cromwellian point of view, an anti-dictatorial point of view, and a pro-freedom point of view.

  Which.

  You.

  Would.

  Know.

  If.

  You.

  Had.

  Read.

  The.

  Book.

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• 

  Iroquois

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 14:11

  Drinking a lot of coffee, are we?

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• 

  Jim

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 14:13

  Read the book.

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• 

  Frank Liberal

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 16:05

  “I don’t agree you have to read something to make a meaningful comment.”

  So, you don’t have to actually know what you’re talking about in order to make a meaningful comment, Iroquois?

  We’re all supposed to respect your blasting a book, when you’ve never even looked at it yourself?

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• 

  Anonymous

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 18:42

  Frank,
  What comment do you consider to be “blasting a book”? Did you even read my remarks?

  Which of these is correct:

  1)You can’t tell if al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization without joining it yourself.
  2)You can’t tell if the KKK is a white supremacist organization unless you attend their meetings yourself.
  3)You can’t tell if the Breatharian diet is a dangerous hoax unless you try eating nothing but air yourself.
  4)You can’t tell if a book is worth buying unless you buy it yourself.

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• 

  Iroquois

  in November 24th, 2007 @ 19:13

  Ooops, that was me posted as Anonymous above.

  I’m not sure what other book, Jim, you are referring to, that you think I commented on without reading. Maybe Pride and Prejudice? Sense and Sensibility? I have picked up both and feel fully justified in setting them down again like hot potatoes without finishing them, even if you think they are God’s Gift. I don’t see why you have to act like a jerk about it.

  Clearly we have the same tastes in some things, like the Constitution, but not in other things, like your infernal juvenile wine coolers, and apparently these tedious British social class meconiums.

  Now correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this author use quotations from Milton’s Paradise Lost as chapter headings for his last book? And wasn’t Milton an avid supporter of Cromwell? This was not a pretty chapter of England’s history, and Cromwell, though he started by trying to correct the corruptions of his time, ended up as a worse despot than those he rebelled against. But Paradise Lost? Why that stuffy tome? How medieval can you get?

  You yourself admit Pullman has an “anti-Cromwellian” point of view. Why should anyone care about Cromwell now? Who cares about writing a three-novel rebuttal of a movement that no one has thought about for the last 400 years? I mean, aren’t those topics rather adolescent and boring now?

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• 

  Truman

  in November 25th, 2007 @ 04:45

  Why would anyone care about history? Dear me. History is far from a boring and adolescent topic.

  It seems that history is another book that you’ll comment upon without reading.

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• 

  Iroquois

  in November 25th, 2007 @ 12:08

  I was being sarcastic.

  Why indeed would someone dredge up Cromwell–unless they wanted to present him as Exhibit A in their anti-Christian crusade. Looks like Pullman had to go back 400 years to find something sufficiently unsavory to bolster his stereotypes about Christians.

  Did you read the book, “Truman”?

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• 

  Frank Liberal

  in November 25th, 2007 @ 15:36

  No, Iroquois, what you were saying was in fact in line with everything that you’ve been talking about.

  You’ve been promoting an agenda of ignorance:

  1. Condemn what you don’t know.
  2. Refuse to gain knowledge when your ignorance is exposed.
  3. Say it’s a “bore” to learn about the things you’ve ignorantly condemned.
  4. Do it all because religious leaders have said so.

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• 

  Iroquois

  in November 25th, 2007 @ 17:00

  You didn’t read the book, did you, “Frank Liberal”.

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