The Golden Compass

[Just as starting note... I thought that I published this awhile ago... but it turns out it was saved as a draft! Oops. ] So I began to read the Golden Compass and to be honest I'm not completely enthralled in it. I'm not sure if that's because I'm not a huge fantasy fan or not. Actually I'm quite certain it had to do with dust! I suppose it could be deemed logical in the sense that everything is made up of some sort of matter. Dust is something that is mentioned from the start with Lord Asriel (Lyra's uncle/father hah!) but it always remains a mystery-never fully resolved. I felt like a lot of aspects of the fantasy world weren't quite developed. The world that was created seemed too much like our world, which I think was intended so that the matters being discussed (souls, right and wrong, passion and life) could be pondered and related to life as "we" know it.

I really didn't appreciate how every character, except Roger, seemed to be self centered.. I thought that Lyra was a just a quirky, independent adolescent but I also believed that she would save Roger. His death was a selfish sacrifice. On a positive I liked the representation of the soul and how it was not connected to the person. Instead of being the soul OF a person it was in the form of a daemon. That made me think of what type of daemon I would have... I'd probably mature into having a squirrel or something nervous or flighty hah :)

I'm glad I attempted to understand this book. I suppose it's like a new type of food that you either like or cannot stand. This was definitely no cupcake.

(I read the school's copy of "The Golden Compass"... it was missing probably twenty pages here and there.. so I watched the movie as well. Altogether an interesting read)