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Philip Pullman | Random House Children's Books | September 10, 2002
Ages 10-12, Philip Pullman
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The questions, discussion topics, and author information that
follow are intended to enhance your group's reading of The
Golden Compass. We hope that this guide will help you to
navigate - alongside the story's young protagonist, Lyra Belacqua -
Philip Pullman's richly imagined universe, populated by armored
bears, gyptians, witches, and human beings, whose dæmons are never
far from their side.
Dæmons are one of the most striking, charming, and powerful images
in The Golden Compass. These spirit-creatures,
which seem like physical representations of the human soul, can
change form to reflect the myriad of emotional states their humans
go through as children. But in adulthood, each dæmon settles into
the animal form that best reflects the inner nature of its human
counterpart. It is in this unusual and imaginative creation that
Pullman turns his sharpest mirror back onto his readers, helping us
to imagine our own souls as precious, living extensions of
ourselves that we can love, challenge, or even betray.
The Golden Compass is a complex story that turns
on a simple word: "Dust." This Dust does not gather in the unswept
corners of Jordan College, Lyra's Oxford home. Rather, this Dust
seems to reveal - or perhaps contain - the thing that makes each
human being a unique creature. The concept of Dust provokes fear in
some; others realize that mastery over Dust could be the source of
great power. Although she does not quite realize it, Lyra - along
with her dæmon Pantalaimon - finds her life inextricably entangled
with the exploration of Dust. And as her understanding of Dust and
her mastery over a mysterious tool called the alethiometer
increases, the dangerous journey that she seems destined to make
takes some astounding twists and turns.