Det gylne kompasset

Novel, Fantasy by Philip Pullman

Blurb

Det gylne kompasset er ei barnebok fra 1995 av den britiske forfatteren Philip Pullman, det er den første boka i trilogien Den mørke materien. Boka ble tildelt Carnegie Medal in Literature da den utkom. Den skildrer en kamp mot det totalitære Magisteriet, og foregår i et parallelt univers, dels i Oxford og dels på Svalbard.
Hovedpersonen Lyra Belacqua og hennes daimon Pantalaimon reiser til Svalbard for å befri vennen Roger, som er bortført av Magisteriet, en organisasjon som symboliserer alle dogmatiske organisasjoner. Magisteriet utfører ondartede eksperimenter med barna for å lære mer om «støv», et materiale som de tror er viktig. Handlingen fører dem i kontakt med gøynere, hekser og panserbjørner.
Trilogien er delvis inspirert av Samuel Taylor Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, og kan sees som en nyskriving av John Miltons Det tapte paradis. Fremstillingen av Magisteriet gjør at verket ofte forstås som en kritikk av religiøse organisasjoner i alminnelighet, eller av en autoritær kirke.
Boka utkom på norsk i 1997, oversatt av Torstein Bugge Høverstad. Den første norske utgaven hadde tittel Nordlys.

First Published

1995

Member Reviews Write your own review

Jon.lessner

OK prose, but terrible plotting and characters. So many of the ostensibly critical characters (in the world) are either deus ex machina for some specific threat the characters are facing, or blatant ego-stroking for the completely self centered mains. The story is written in third person, but from such a skewed perspective and rationale that it sometimes seems it's a mythical tale told after the fact by the mains about themselves. Besides this, some of the morality is just bizarre and inconsistent. The Church is self-evidently evil because they're subtly censoring scientific institutions (which is only demonstrated once in the whole series) and they sponsor a creepy, child-exploiting antagonist. Fair enough. But the main character sees the distant messiah (her father) kill her best friend for a remarkably similar "scientific" purpose, then he time travels and starts amassing a secret army, and she STILL sees him as a hero. WTF is going on in this story? The whole thing is riddled with motivated reasoning. "We're good, so the insane things we're doing are good." A truly disturbing book if the heroes were not written ironically. Every major event and decision screams #raisedbynarcissists.

0 Responses posted in January

Gambit4348

A very creative and funny adventure in an alternate universe with a lovely character named Lyra. The author successfully creates a fantasy in a universe where reality is very distinct from ours. The tone of mistery is balanced with action and intrigue and very amazing characters and their "deamons". This book has the correct pace to display the events in the storyline, not being too fast, not too slow! A real accomplishment!

0 Responses posted in January