Far from your typical wish-fulfillment type adventure story for
children, in which an ordinary kid discovers he or she has been
endowed with a magical weapon or power or whatnot, and sets out to
become a hero - His Dark Materials is a series for youngsters with
some real philosophical and existential meat to it. It is no mere
magic sword or treasure map discovered by Lyra our wiley
protagonist, nor the magical ability to fly or turn invisible. What
she learns instead, is that her enigmatic Uncle is conspiring to
wage war against God. What she finds to get her started on her
journey - an instrument called an alethiometer which allows her to
decipher the truth in all matters of cosmology and discourse.
This is a story at it's heart about truth and free will -- the
value of real human volition.
This is no Percy Jackson and certainly no Narnia -- Hallelujah,
Amen.
Add to this impressive pseudo-Miltonian plot, this not-so morally
cut and dried counter-thesis to CS Lewis' didactic Narnia series -
a highly inventive Victorian steampunk fantasy world complete with
airships, bow-wielding flying witches and a society of
armour-sporting polar bears warring for dominance in the North
Pole, and you've got yourself a pretty badass fantasy trilogy that
children and adults seeking a more humanistic approach to fantasy
will enjoy sinking their teeth into.
Okay fine, most kids aren't going to read this for the treatise on
doing away with church made fabrications about the afterlife in
order to focus on bettering the world at our finger tips in the
present -- the life we have in front of us right now, but I think
they'll sure as hell enjoy the armoured Polar Bears. I most
certainly did, and then some.
I found the Golden Compass to be the most enjoyable installation,
mostly for the physical distance covered in the actual journey and
the compelling darkness of the ending. The Trilogy ends up playing
out as an endorsement of free will over pious servitude. The fall
of Adam and Eve is regarded by Pullman, as a positive event in
mythology rather than the troublesome origin of all ill-fortune as
is viewed by tradition. This is the kind of story most kids with
devout church going parents will want to smuggle in from the
library and read with a flashnight beneath the sheets at night.
And don't watch the movie.
It's crap.