“The Golden Compass” is a blatant attempt to duplicate the success of the “Harry Potter” franchise. The only thing missing is richly imagined characters, a comprehensible story line, good acting, and satisfying special effects. ~Peter Rainer
So, I take it that that’s a thumbs down. I have been interested to read some reviews of The Golden Compass after commenting on this Atlantic article about it. While it has received some good press, many reviewers are saying that it is confusing and mediocre. (The title has also provided easy fodder for mocking the film’s direction, or lack thereof.) I wonder if the movie has so softened and dulled the ideas in the book (even if they are ideas that would have made the movie much less popular and lucrative), as the article suggested it did, that it lost whatever coherence it may have had as a novel. The Chronicle’s reviewer certainly thought this was the case:
It’s a story without a soul.
Perhaps materialists will take that as a compliment?
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December 7th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Grumpy Old Man
I listened to the first book in the trilogy on tape on the way to Yosemite a few years ago. It’s quite imaginative and well-written, as I remember, better than Narnia, which Christians tend to overrate because they like Lewis’s theology.
The “Magisterium” in The Golden Compass may be something like the Vatican in the author’s mind, but in the first volume, at least, it could as easily be the Kremlin, the Illuminati, or any impenetrable and self-righteous bureaucracy out of Kafka.
The last volume, as I remember, is more explicitly anti-religious, but still, your average MTV show or sitcom will do far more damage to young souls than Pullman’s novels.
December 7th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Glaivester1
As Irecall, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was very good if you were looking for an allegory, and not so good if you looked at it on its own terms.
December 8th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Herman
I’m with Glaivester and GOM on Lewis. I read the Narnia books when I was young and didn’t understand Christianity. As an adult Christian, I never found myself wanting to go back to read them, though I did see the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe movie twice. I still can’t comprehend all the gushing from my Christian friends for the novels or first film.
The Golden Compass was an bright and imaginative book though the anti-Christian angles gave me pause. The following book was OK and third one was quite tedious to read and lazily written.
December 9th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Daniel Larison
You’ll get no argument from me. As fairly heavy-handed Christian allegory for children, the Narnia books fill their role capably, but no one should compare it with great accomplishments in literature. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, while sometimes clunky, is his far more interesting work of fiction. It could veer into apologetic mode pretty quickly, but it seems to me that it was much more engaging, especially That Hideous Strength, than Lewis’ other fiction. People gush about the Narnia books because they have strong sentimental or personal attachments to them. For some of us, they were the closest thing we had to religious education as kids, and so we tend to look back with some fondness for the books.