Did I do good Jill'n'K? (or, "what a load of Gobblers") (Northern Lights - Philip Pullman)

Member Name: jimblob

Product:	Northern Lights - Philip Pullman
Date:	12/11/01 (842 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Totally absorbing, A treat for any age

Disadvantages: None

Lyra is a young, pre-pubescent girl, the ward of a bunch elderly scholars in the creaky world of an old university, she is a feisty, stubborn and unwieldy child, qualities that she will rely heavily on as her adventure goes on.

Lyra?s uncle is Lord Asriel, an awe inspiring man who oozes authority and is used to getting his own way. (She is later to find out that he is actually her father) He is an explorer and scientist, who has close ties to the university that is Lyra?s home. After foiling a plan to poison him, Lyra learns that he is planning an expedition to the North to learn about a strange thing called ?Dust?. For the first time in her short life Lyra is intrigued and excited, she begs him to take her with him but he refuses.

The England that she lives in bears a resemblance the late nineteenth century England we have all read about. Atmospheric is the best word to describe it.

This isn?t England of course, but a parallel to it or England on another plane. The world is ruled by the church, broken up into various sections, all vying for power and as such the main body can pick or choose who to back, depending on their power at the time, and so retaining overall power over this strange world.
Each human has a daemon, a sort of external soul and companion which takes on the form of an animal. Up until puberty the daemons can change their form at will until, on reaching that hairy-voice-breaking-pimply-state, they finally settle on a form that suits both best.

Back to Lyra, she is perfectly happy running wild through the streets and canals of Oxford, fighting with the ?Gyptian? kids and generally having fun. One day she hears of a group called the ?Gobblers? (General Obligation Board),who steal children and take them north, never to be seen again. Rumours abound as to what happens to them, some say the Gobblers eat them, some say that they use them for experiments, but the truth is even more horrific. Lyra is drawn into
the world of the Gobblers when her companion, a young kitchen boy, disappears.

At the same time a young Gyptian boy goes missing too and with the help of the Gyptian people Lyra goes in search of her friend. Her adventures take her to the north, to the icy wastelands of the Tartars and witches and Polar Bears who are skilled in the art of working metal, one in particular who is destined to play a major part in her life.

I am reluctant, and in truth, unable to convey much more of this story without spoiling it in some small way. I can only urge you to get a copy. Buy it, borrow it, steal it from the school library and then hide yourself away and read it, lose yourself in the easy and imaginative way that Pullman weaves a story. He manages to effortlessly pull us along at a breathtaking pace through four main stages of this story.

The first part is the introduction of Lyra and her daemon and her relationships within the cocoon of the university, the second; her introduction and flight from the haven of her home with a Mrs Coulter, who wants Lyra to be her assistant. The third is the flight from Mrs Coulter and subsequent collaboration with the Gyptians in her quest to rescue her friend and the other children from the clutches of the Obligation Board, and the fourth, when she learns the true horror of the experiments in the North and the consequences for herself and her daemon.

I?m a reader. I read things every spare minute I have. I read the side of a cornflakes box at breakfast, I have books in the toilet at home and at work, I read posters and covers when peering through the shop window of the local bookstore, (If I actually went in I would possibly be lost forever).
I read on dooyoo, I read on the OpCom, I am even reading this as I type. Reading is the single most important thing that my many teachers have taught me.
I do not have a particular favourite genre of book, I like everything from autobiographies to horror,
from cornflake boxes to Enid Blyton.
Reading helps me escape. It helps to transport me into an infinite realm of other worlds, into the minds of different people, it helps me escape from my own hum-drum existence and that is no bad thing.
Every once in a while I come across the odd tome that draws me into a world with such force, that all else fades into an unreality, I become so absorbed in a story that I cease to exist as the old chubby Jimblob we all know (and love?)

?Northern lights? by Philip Pullman is one such book. It is essentially a children?s book, or more accurately a young adults book. Now I am neither a child nor a young adult, I am a thirty something dreamer who is too old to realise his aspirations and too young to worry unduly about it yet, but sometimes reading books aimed at a younger market can inject a bit youth into your soul, and this book does that just fine.

I was captivated by the feisty Lyra, almost from page one! I lived her adventure, empathising, laughing at her naivety and actually willing her to succeed against the odds. Northern Lights is just the first book in a series, Lyra lives on to travel through other universes and worlds and I can?t wait to read the next two books of this trilogy (The Subtle Knife and the Amber Spyglass) This is not just another fantasy adventure, it is an instant classic and will not disappoint.


?Northern Lights? is available from Amazon for £4.79 or for £5.99 from normal outlets. Alternatively you could buy the boxed set, of the complete trilogy, from Amazon for £13.30.

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