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Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.

Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.

On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.

 

The Northern Lights

Philip Pullman

'Without this child, we shall all die. So the witches say, But she must fulfil this destiny in ignorance of what she is doing, because only in her ignorance can we be saved.'

Twelve-year-old Lyra Belacqua lives unparented and half-wild among the scholars of Jordan Collage. One day her unclse, Lord Asriel, and experimental Theologian and explorer arrives with terrifying news from the north. Impelled at first by her own curiosity, but soon pursued by appaling dangers, Lyra is drawn into a savage struggle among the armoured bears and witch-clans of the arctic, where a scientific research station is carrying out experiments too horrible to talk about.

In order to survice at all, she must leave her childhood behind and venture where no one has gone before - beyond the Northern Lights.

The first in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Whilst comparison will be drawn with Lord of the Rings or any of the Potter books, I would say this work sits as a happy mid-point between the two. Setting the starting place in Oxford, albeit in another dimension, allows Pullman to play with his own rules; an victorianesque society with the Church at its head, with zeppelins, naptha lamps, yet the understanding of physics we have today.

Whilst being notionally a childs book, Pullman uses these as a foil to explore and tackle the subjects of personal identity, religion, science and war. To achieve this, Pullman has created some realistic and imaginative individuals whose relationship and characters are well developed as the story continues. I found the plot original, but sometimes to advance it required chance happenings that were a bit fortuitous.

All in all was an enjoyable read, and whilst felt the ending lacked closure (spoiler: because it is a direct lead into book two The Subtle Knife and is very much part 1), it was a good read.

13 May 2005 19:19 | (0) comments | Books

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