The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass

1995 • 399 pages

Ratings1,021

Average rating4

15

For the first half or so of the book, I was very into it. I like the world, I liked Lyra, but around the time she got to Svalbard, things started to go downhill. A plan that shouldn't have worked at all, worked perfectly, and the amount of things she was not asking the alethiometer, but should have been asking, started to skyrocket.

By all accounts, Lyra is an intelligent and inquisitive girl, so her not asking things like “What am I supposed to bring to Lord Asriel?” or “What is Lord Asriel planning?” etc. are weird. If she asked those questions, and then thought about how if Dust is moving the alethiometer, maybe it's not trustworthy, great, that provides genuine tension, but not asking at all is just dumb. I've always complained about the Harry Potter structure, where you don't really find out what was happening until the end when Dumbledore tells you. This does the same thing, except Lyra is willfully ignorant, whereas Harry is actively trying to figure things out and just doesn't know the full picture.

I did enjoy reading it, and it's well written, but the promise of seeing whatever the golden city is and finding out the true nature of Dust just isn't enough if this is how it goes from here on out. It is definitely a solid read, but it could've been great.

August 13, 2019