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| (Cover Artist: Erika Meltzer O’Rourke) |
While the complete His Dark Materials Trilogy is frequently characterized as an extended allegory for the dangers of religious institutions, after rereading this book, this ultimately struck me as somewhat misplaced. While it's true that the characters of the His Dark Materials Trilogy eventually declare -- and win -- a "war on God," I think the assertion that Pullman's work acts only as an allegory against religion misses a fundamental aspect of what he accomplishes with this story.
Pullman examines not only themes of corruption and abuse of power, but also the complicated and sometimes contentious nature of the concept of truth and identity in relation to social and political forces. Even more interesting is the fact that Pullman explores all of these themes from the perspective of a young character whose existence itself is seen by those around her as merely a stepping stone to something else--a protagonist whose own subjective "truth" regarding her identity is continually asserted by others to merely be a temporary state existing only to serve their ends, and not hers.
That is, The Golden Compass is in the end a novel examining not the "dangers of religion," but instead the question of what exactly childhood is, and how it is often misperceived.
The story of The Golden Compass opens by introducing the reader to Lyra Belacqua, a 12-year-old orphaned girl looked after by the serving staff and faculty of a vaguely steampunk version of Oxford College. Hearing that her Uncle, the austere and distant Lord Asriel, is due to visit, Lyra sneaks into the room where Asriel is scheduled to speak, and in so doing overhears a discussion of a plot to poison her uncle before he can present the findings of his most recent expedition "to the North." After saving Asriel by warning him of this danger, Lyra then hides in a closet, and listens as Asriel gives a speech to the college staff about a portal he has discovered to another world, and a strange substance that seems to emanate from that realm called (in capital letters) "Dust."
Narrowly having avoided assassination thanks to Lyra's warning, but still having secured the necessary funds to continue his research, Asriel promptly leaves Oxford after his presentation is complete, hardly even giving the niece who saved his life a passing thought as he departs on his second expedition. With that, Lyra returns to her day-to-day existence leading gangs of children to so-called "war" with one another in the surrounding city, content to return to life as normal.
Then, as if due to the findings which Asriel presented to the college, children from all across Oxford slowly begin vanishing. Rumors circulate that a mysterious quasi-governmental organization called the "General Oblation Board" is responsible, and when Lyra's best friend Roger goes missing, she vows to find him, eventually joining forces with a band of seafaring merchants known as the Gyptians whose own children have been taken as well.
That is the basic plot of The Golden Compass, but it's also worth noting that simply relating the core details of Pullman's story omits many of his more interesting narrative choices. Foremost among these are the presence of "daemons" in his fictional universe--metaphysical beings who take the form of shape-shifting animal companions, and who in Pullman's world are paired with every human in existence in such a way that makes both humans and daemons appear to be manifestations of the same entity.
Lyra herself has a daemon named Pantalaimon, and together the two often act as one being in the narrative -- each forming a counterpart to the other's ego while they both navigate the plot. There are also further fantasy elements in the form of kingdoms of talking bears who wear medieval battle armor, seemingly ageless witches who fly through the sky on branches of pine, and (of course) the alethiometer from which the American title of this novel derives (an intricate compass-like device gifted to Lyra early on in the story) whose multiple hands respond not to the earth's magnetic field, but instead to a much more abstract force seeming to represent truth itself.
As a story device, the alethiometer is possibly worth examining in its own right. As the plot develops, Lyra frequently consults this instrument for advice and instructions, interpreting the movements of its three hands via her own intricate and half-logical chains of thought. Rather than being simply a convenient plot device allowing the author to dispense vital wisdom to his protagonist as needed, the ambiguity that Pullman introduces into the story via the alethiometer adds an unexpected dimension to his narrative.
In once scene, Lyra discusses the experience of reading the alethiometer with the leader of the Gyptians, Farder Coram, and in the ensuing exchange, it's heavily implied that the alethiometer (or at the very least the unseen force its hands respond to) is an intelligence in and of itself. Specifically, Lyra says of this device:
"It's almost like talking to someone, only you can't quite hear them, and you feel kind of stupid because they're cleverer than you, only they never get cross or anything.... And they know such a lot, Farder Coram! As if they knew everything, almost!" (p.133)
For the most part, the alethiometer remains more or less a background story element for the duration of The Golden Compass, but as the plot develops further the mystery which this device represents becomes a vital aspect of the author's themes. Critical to the presence of the alethiometer in Pullman's narrative seems to be the fact that Lyra is never entirely certain as to how she is supposed to read the answers it gives to her questions. The result is that as the story continues, the alethiometer becomes something of a comment by Pullman regarding the nature of reality and truth--a comment which exists alongside his other fantasy elements which explore this theme. While every "instruction" which the Alethiometer provides Lyra is ultimately shown to be valid, it eventually becomes very clear both to her and to the reader that the "truth" these instructions represent can often be subject to wildly different interpretations.
It's only as the story develops that Pullman's various fantasy elements slowly start to solidify into something more holistic, with his world-building coming to resemble something akin to an immense yet intricate orchestral composition. One example of the way that Pullman infuses thematic depth into his story comes midway through the plot. While the primary narrative of The Golden Compass concerns Lyra's efforts to track down the children abducted by the General Oblation Board, halfway through the text an additional character is introduced in the form of Iorek Byrnison, an "Armored Bear" whom Lyra and the Gyptians meet while searching for clues as to the whereabouts of the missing children.
Having been captured by the townspeople in an isolated settlement, Iorek offers his services to the Gyptians on the condition that Farder Coram secures the release of his armor from the town's mayor--this armor having been stolen from him when he was captured. This chain of events forms a kind of midway subplot in the novel, with Lyra ultimately taking it upon herself to devise a plan to locate Iorek's armor and return it to him in exchange for his help.
However, what really makes Iorek and his story such an engaging addition to this book is a subtext which Pullman quietly weaves into the narrative regarding the significance which armored bears like Iorek hold in the book's fictional cosmology. Rather than being a throwaway detail meant to help texture the story's setting, this information eventually becomes vital to the development of the novel's broader themes by drawing the reader's attention to the way in which various rules which Pullman had previously established as absolutes regarding his fantasy elements are in fact anything but.
Specifically, whereas Lyra's being is shown to be manifested externally via her daemon, Pantalaimon, Iorek claims that his own identity is rooted instead in the armor that was stolen from him by the townspeople. As a result, while all humans in Pullman's world possess daemons who accompany them through life, Iorek claims to Lyra that armored bears like himself possess armor which represent for them the same core elements of existence.
She [Lyra] didn't mean to be nosy, but she couldn't help being curious. She said "Why don't you just make some more armor out of this metal here, Iorek Byrnison?"
"Because it's worthless. Look," he said, and lifting the engine cover with one paw, he extended a claw on the other hand and ripped right through it like a can opener. "My armor is made of sky iron, made for me. A bear's armor is his soul, just as your daemon is your soul. You might as well take him away"--indicating Pantalaimon--"and replace him with a doll full of sawdust." (p.172)
Given that it has at this point already been frequently stated that daemons are a manifestation of a human's soul, Iorek's claim here that his own "soul" is something which is constructed from the raw materials of his environment (whether made by him or by another bear), is a development which has far reaching metaphorical implications for the story's universe.
That is, while humans in Pullman's world seem to have a being that is innate to them (as manifested by their daemons), Iorek implies that the armored bears like himself exist in a fundamentally separate state, with their souls (so to speak) being things that they either create or define in entirely different contexts.
This meditation on the nature of identity, and specifically the different ways it can be constructed, is continued when Lyra and Iorek eventually travel to the Kingdom of Bears at the end of the novel. After learning that this kingdom is where the Oblation Board built their secretive research base, Lyra arrives in the main palace of Iorek's old rival, the bear king Iofur Raknison. There, she discovers a strange sort of puppet government heavily influenced by the whims of the Oblation Board, with each of Iofur's subjects having been commanded by him to imitate the ways and customs of humans in the hope that this might earn him "boons" from the mysterious experiments which the Oblation Board conducts on its captured children.
The passage in which Iofur is introduced directly highlights the way in which this character imitates various human qualities, even going so far as to obtain a doll which he pretends is his own daemon.
Sitting on the throne was the biggest bear she had ever seen. Iofur Raknison was even taller and bulkier than Iorek, and his face was much more mobile and expressive, with a kind of humanness in it which she had never seen in Iorek's. When Iofur looked at her, she seemed to see a man looking out of his eyes, the sort of man she had met at Mrs. Coulter's, a subtle politician used to power. [...]
But she moved a little closer, because she had to, and then she saw that Iofur was holding something on his knee, as a human might let a cat sit there -- or a daemon.
It was a big stuffed doll, a manikin with a vacant stupid human face. It was dressed as Mrs Coulter would dress, and it had a sort of resemblance to her. He was pretending he had a daemon. (p.294-295)
Pullman is introducing a critical subtext here. The so-called "king of the bears" is shown to be seeking to imitate the customs of the humans working for the Oblation Board, all in the hope that he might, in a sense, be "allowed" by them to become human himself. While it's tempting to read the political aspects of this relationship as a metaphor for colonialism--and then, consequently, to point out the innumerable problems with creating a metaphor for colonialism that characterizes the members of a colonized society as literal animals--I think there's also an additional subtext regarding personal identity which Pullman engages here which is worth examining alongside these critiques.
Without giving away major story details, the experiments which the General Oblation Board is eventually revealed to conduct hinge on an effort to "correct" a basic aspect of human nature--transforming that nature in the process into something which can more easily be exploited. The result is that the way in which the Oblation Board responds to the existence of armored bears (beings whose "souls" exist on fundamentally different terms from those of the human characters) reveals the ways in which this organization is fixated on perpetuating only one view of existence and identity.
That the only bear which the Oblation Board interacts with is one obsessed with becoming human highlights this mindset, since it shows how the Oblation Board and its members view the armored bears merely as a resource meant to serve them and nothing more. This mindset is mirrored in the one levied on the children whom the Oblation Board abducts for their experiments, since in both of these cases, the children and the armored bears (while vastly different in their own rights), are both groups whose existences the Oblation Board is intent on seeing as merely tools meant to serve their own ends. This in and of itself is a definition of colonialism.
All of these themes ultimately coincide to form a cliff-hanger ending that leads very overtly to the novel's sequel, The Subtle Knife, but even as a stand-alone work The Golden Compass is a fascinating book to read. Over the course of this book, Pullman slowly builds up the world and ideas of his story, infusing complex philosophical, political, and moral concepts into what any other author might approach as throwaway plot details.
The result is that by the end of this book, the reader is not only fully immersed in the world that the author has created, but also completely and utterly engaged with the abstract themes he has spent an entire novel exploring. With The Golden Compass, Pullman doesn't merely create a deeply political fantasy novel about the nature of personal and social existence, he also shows how the mechanisms of world building can be vital tools by which authors can further a novel's themes.
There are many authors eager to adopt the aesthetic of an alternate history fantasy novel, creating surreal steampunk-styled adventure stories driven by the author's intricate imagination. Of these, few also manage to infuse their work with the metaphorical resonance that Pullman does here, giving his story and world just as much thematic depth as originality.