My interest in The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman by was peaked when I heard that there was a lot of controversy surrounding the His Dark Materials series.   I ended up getting the series for Christmas one year and was actually quite surprised by the sophistication of the novels.

While touted as Young Adult fiction, the series actually goes quite deep into religious philosophy and theories of the soul.  This is where the controversy comes from, as the books discuss the roll of the church in the salvation of the soul.  Each novel of this series goes deeper, becomes more sophisticated, and handles the issue on a more mature level.  This is why there was more controversy surrounding the movie,  because it only covers the first novel, which does nothing more than question the motives of the church.  I can also see how this could scare people off from finishing the series, if they didn’t like what they read in the first novel.

It’s not just controversy that might keep people away, however .  As I said, this is supposed to be a YA series, and the first novel definitely reads that way.  The characters are children, the writing and imagery is simple, even the subject matter, while philosophical is also fantastical and isn’t too deep for the reader to have problems comprehend or imagining.

The Golden Compass is a story of a young girl, an orphan, and her daemon (an animal companion that we later learn is the physical representation of the soul) who goes on a quest to discover why children are going missing.  She does this with the use of a magical golden compass which can answer questions, and which only she can interpret.   The novel is about her adventures in freeing the children and stopping the bad people, Gobbers.

It’s very unfortunate that, like the first book, the first movie didn’t grab people enough to want to see more.   A lot of money was put into making this movie;  It had star power, great marketing and a huge production budget.  At the time it was to come out, I remember it was supposed to be the next ‘big thing’ in movies, and everyone was so excited to see it.  Except, of course, those from the religious right who were boycotting it because of it’s supposed anti-church stance.

The movie fell flat however.  It just didn’t have the magic that the book had, even though it tried really hard.  It’s kind of like how, in the novel, the king of the Polar Bears wants to have a Daemon, more than anything, so he pretends that he has one.  This is almost how it seemed with the actors to me – they tried to pretend they had their souls out in the open, but it was obviously just pretend.  While the movie was fairly loyal to the plot, the childlike excitement was missing, and it was difficult to care about the characters.   So, what audiences were left with was a movie that wanted to be good, that no one cared about and so the entire idea was lost.  Without sequels we don’t get to get to the good parts, where we learn about the goodness of the human soul and the dangers of power corrupting, and we don’t get to see a little girl save the universes.   It’s all so disappointing that appreciation of the series has been lost, (and it has such potential!) because the movie had no soul.  How ironic.

You can’t just read one novel and appreciate it, so you can find the series here: His Dark Materials Trilogy

And the movie, here: The Golden Compass (2007)

It’s been a lot more difficult to keep up with daily posts, than I first envisioned when I started this blog.   I’ve compensated with excerpts from  my novel, and tech reviews and even reviews by my husband.   It’s worked so far, except now I’m reading a much longer novel and I’ve run out of post ideas.

Luckily, I’ve been  inspired by one of my most favorite blogs, Cakewrecks, which has a feature called “Sunday Sweets”.  Based on the same principle, I’m starting a feature I’m going to call “Sunday Favorites”.   It will allow me to review all of the books that I have read seemingly a hundred times, yet, even as the pages may tatter, the story never does.

The first novel of this feature is going to be “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire.   I first read this novel around twelve years ago, when I was in the middle of my first university career.   I had found it in this little independently run bookstore and coffee shop, the smell of which I still remember:  coffee, books and incense.

I remember opening it and being instantly lost in the story.  I read it on the bus all the way home, and when the stranger sitting beside me interrupted to ask what I was reading, I was too annoyed with his interruption to notice what was probably a clumsy attempt to flirt.

“Wicked” is the ‘true story’ of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West of “The Wizard of Oz”.  It follows her throughout her life, from the strange circumstances of her birth, though childhood to University and beyond.   It is while in school that Elphaba becomes an Animal rights activist, and it is this activity which shapes the rest of her life.

The first twist of the novel, compared to the original story is that the Witch is not wicked at all, she’s just misunderstood.   Her strange green-skin condition is the result of her mother’s extra marital affair with a strange man in a balloon (the Wizard!).  She is incredibly smart, magically talented, politically motivated and very strong and independently minded.   Her character is very easy to like, as we quickly learn about her inner person as she shows how caring she is, both of her friends, family and strangers.

The second biggest difference is that this is not a story for children.   Not only is it very political, but there is also strong violence, language and sex.  Gone is the happy-go-lucky innocence of the original Wizard of Oz.  Even the Wizard is no longer a kind bumbling old man, stuck in Oz, but a mean, vengeful tyrant with visions of ruling all of Oz with an iron fist.

Behind it all, “Wicked” is really a social commentary on the natures of good and evil.  Its message is that good and evil are the purview of the beholder; what seems right to someone is based on their circumstances, history and beliefs.  Another person with different history and beliefs may see this view as evil.

The best thing about this novel is that every time I read it, I understand it on a different level.  When I first read it it was just a good, topsy-turvy story.  As I grew older, I began to identify more with the characters, and understand the strong political currents throughout the novel.

Although the novel now has two further novels in the series, “Son of a Witch” and “A Lion Among Men”, none of them have had the same message as the first. Gregory Maguire  has also written other true fairy tale novels, all of them enjoyable, but they are more of how a true story can become fairy tale, than about any underlying message or lesson.

Wicked is a deep, complex, enjoyable novel that should be on everyone’s ‘to read list’.

You can find it here:

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West