Resumo de The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The Golden Compass is the first book in the trilogy His Dark Materials, a fantasy series by Philip Pullman. Written for people of all ages, this book starts its readers on a fantastical journey of vivid adventure, theological scrutiny, and religious revelation.

The story begins in Oxford, England?yet not quite the England we know. It is an alternate universe, one of many that Pullman ingeniously fabricates, a universe where each person has an animal spirit (daemon) that accompanies him for his entire life. Pullman introduces us to Lyra Belacqua, an 11 year-old girl full of rebellious spirit, and her shape-shifting daemon, Pantalaimon. Living in Jordan College, she and her best friend Roger cause mischief almost daily in their escapades.

Lyra?s daily routine is interrupted by a visit by her uncle Lord Asriel, a powerful man whose snow leopard daemon serves as an outward manifestation of his commanding aura. While eavesdropping on a meeting where he is in attendance, she learns of something called Dust, which seems to make people both in science and in the church nervous.

The story begins to pick up pace as many children start disappearing all across the city. When Roger is kidnapped, Lyra embarks on a quest to find him. She meets Mrs. Coulter, a beautiful and refined woman whose golden monkey daemon attests to her guile and grace. Mrs. Coulter allows Lyra to come with her to the Arctic North, but before she leaves, the master of Jordan College gives her a mysterious compass, the alethiometer, which he says can read truth in everything.

Lyra learns that a committee set up by the church is responsible for the kidnappings and has begun experiments where the spiritual bond between human and daemon is severed. Meanwhile, her uncle has been captured and is being held in a prison in the Arctic. Growing more and more wary of Mrs. Coulter, she runs away and joins the gyptians, a group of gypsies who have also lost children to the church.

With the gyptians, she goes north and encounters many bewildering figures, including witches and talking armored bears. The gyptian leaders Lord Faa and Farder Coram reveal that she is the daughter of Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter. The witch queen, Serafina Pekkala, tells Lyra that she is the child a witch prophecy has predicted will hold the fate of the universe in her hands. A deposed king of the bears, Iorek Byrnison, becomes a staunch protector and friend as Lyra helps him rise to power against an enemy bear. Along the way, Lyra has learned to read the alethiometer and decipher truthful advice in tough situations.

She reaches Bolvangar, the experiment station where scientists sever child from daemon, and helps all the children escape. She is reunited with Roger, but her happiness is short-lived as Lord Asriel kidnaps him. Lord Asriel has ambitions to cross into other universes, but the only power great enough to break the barrier between this world and another is the release of energy following the severance of a person-daemon bond. He cuts Roger from his daemon, killing the boy, and crosses into another universe. Lyra, grief-stricken but determined to discover the key to the mysterious Dust that has set all of this in motion, follows Lord Asriel into a strange new world. Here the story ends, and continues in the next book.

The Golden Compass introduces us to weighty issues many philosophers and scholars have puzzled over for ages.

What is the human essence? What is the soul? Pullman?s peculiar design of the human-daemon relationship seems to tell us that there is something within each of us that acts like a lifelong spiritual companion, that dies when we die, that cannot bear to stray from us. Is this the soul or the spirit?

Pullman also begins his critique of religion, the Catholic Church in particular, in this book. He clearly does not agree with the church?s formal practices, and sets up the churchas an enemy to Lyra?s search for truth. While the irreligious Mrs. Coulter is bent on seeking out Dust to exploit it, the church is bent on seeking it out to destroy it. This is a hint to the next question,

What is Dust? We will learn more about it in the next book, but for now, it seems to be something so powerful that the foundation of the universe rests upon it. Why does the church want to destroy it so badly? What kind of challenge does it pose to religious doctrine?

Intertwined with these questions are various other elements, such as the role of science in our world and just how far it can go before too much humanity is sacrificed. Character development is another unique part of this story, showing us how one man?s ambition can literally open a new universe, but at the cost of innocent life. These heavy issues, along with new questions, lie in the next book, The Subtle Knife.

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