Northern Lights (Pullman novel)

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Northern Lights
Northern Lights (novel) cover.jpg
First edition
Author Philip Pullman
Cover artist David Scutt and Pullman
Series His Dark Materials [1]
Genre Children's fantasy novel
Publisher Scholastic Point
Publication date
9 July 1995
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardback and paperback)
Pages399
ISBN 0-590-54178-1
OCLC 37806360
LC Class PZ7.P968 No 1995 [2]
PZ7.P968 Go 1996 [3]
Preceded by La Belle Sauvage  
Followed by The Subtle Knife  

Northern Lights (titled The Golden Compass in North America and some other countries) is a young-adult fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, published in 1995 by Scholastic UK. Set in a parallel universe, it follows the journey of Lyra Belacqua to the Arctic in search of her missing friend, Roger Parslow, and her imprisoned uncle, Lord Asriel, who has been conducting experiments with a mysterious substance known as "Dust".

Contents

Northern Lights is the first book of the trilogy, His Dark Materials (1995 to 2000). [1] Alfred A. Knopf published the first US edition April 1996, under the name The Golden Compass, [1] [3] under which title it was adapted as a 2007 feature film and as a companion video game. The book has also been adapted as the first part of the 2019 TV series His Dark Materials.

Pullman won the 1995 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding British children's book. [4] For the 70th anniversary of the Medal, it was named one of the top ten winning works by a panel, composing the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite. [5] Northern Lights won the public vote from that shortlist and was thus named the all-time "Carnegie of Carnegies" on 21 June 2007.

Synopsis

Setting

The setting is a world dominated by the Magisterium (commonly called "the Church"), an international theocracy which actively suppresses heresy. In this world, humans' souls naturally exist outside of their bodies in the form of sentient "dæmons" in animal form which accompany, aid, and comfort their humans. An important plot device is the alethiometer, a truth-telling symbol reader. By setting the alethiometer's hands to point to symbols around a dial a skilled practitioner can pose questions, which are answered by the movement of a further hand.

Plot

Twelve-year-old Lyra Belacqua runs wild with her dæmon Pantalaimon around Jordan College, Oxford, under the guardianship of the college's Master. One day, she witnesses the Master poison wine intended for Lord Asriel. She warns Asriel, whom she believes is her uncle, not to drink the wine, then spies on his lecture about "Dust", mysterious elementary particles attracted to adults more than to children. Asriel shows the college scholars images of a parallel universe seen through the Northern Lights amidst a concentration of Dust. The scholars agree to fund his controversial research, which is considered heretical by the oppressive Church.

Lyra's best friend Roger goes missing, presumed kidnapped by child abductors known as the "Gobblers". Mrs Coulter takes Lyra to her home in London, but before Lyra leaves Jordan, the Master entrusts her with an alethiometer, a strange truth-telling device, which she quickly learns to use intuitively. After several weeks, Lyra discovers that Coulter is the head of the Gobblers, or "General Oblation Board", a secret Church-funded project. Horrified, Lyra flees into London and is found by the Gyptians, canal-faring nomads, many of whose children have also been abducted. They reveal to Lyra that Asriel and Coulter are her parents.

The Gyptians form an expedition to the Arctic with Lyra, where they believe the Gobblers are holding their children. They stop in Trollesund, where Lyra meets Iorek Byrnison, the dispossessed royal heir of the panserbjørne (armoured bears). Lyra uses her alethiometer to locate Iorek's missing armour; in return, he and his human aeronaut friend, Lee Scoresby, join her group. She also learns that Lord Asriel has been exiled, guarded by the panserbjørne on Svalbard. Trollesund's witch consul tells the Gyptians of a prophecy about Lyra which she must not know, and that the witch clans are choosing sides for an upcoming war.

The search party continues towards Bolvangar, the Gobbler research station. Guided by the alethiometer, Lyra detours at a village and discovers an abandoned child who has been cut from his dæmon and who soon dies. She realises the Gobblers are experimenting on children by severing the bond between human and dæmon, a soul-splitting process called intercision. Lyra and her companions are attacked by bounty hunters, and Lyra is captured and taken to Bolvangar, where she is briefly reunited with Roger before being sent to be separated from Pantalaimon. Just before this can occur, Coulter arrives and halts the intercision process. She tells Lyra that intercision prevents the onset of troubling adult emotions, though it has not yet been perfected.

Lyra activates Bolvangar's emergency alarm, sets the station on fire, and evacuates the children, where they are rescued by Scoresby, Iorek, the Gyptians, and the witch clan of Serafina Pekkala, who battle the station attendants as Lyra, Roger, and Iorek flee in Scoresby's hot air balloon. Lyra directs the witches to tow the balloon towards Asriel in Svalbard, but she falls out and is taken by the panserbjørne to the castle of their usurping king, Iofur Raknison. She tricks Iofur into fighting Iorek, who arrives with Roger to rescue Lyra. Iorek kills Iofur and regains his place as the rightful king.

Lyra, Iorek, and Roger continue onwards to Svalbard, where Asriel has continued his Dust research in exile. He tells Lyra all he knows of Dust: that it has spawned parallel universes, it is somehow connected to death and misery, and that the Church believes it is the physical basis of sin. Lord Asriel travels with Roger through the snow, Lyra and Iorek follow using the tracks of Asriel's sled. Asriel ascends a mountain with Roger as Lyra and Iorek and his squadron of bears battle the witches that are allied with Asriel. Mrs Coulter and the Tartars arrive in a military airship and attack the bears. During the battle, Mrs Coulter follows Lyra to the top of the mountain, where Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter embrace at the peak of the mountain where Asriel has set up his equipment. Suddenly, Lord Asriel severs Roger from his dæmon, killing Roger but releasing an enormous amount of energy that tears a hole in the Northern Lights into a parallel universe, through which he walks. Devastated, Lyra and Pantalaimon also pass through the opening in the sky.

Characters

All humans in Northern Lights, as well as witches, have a dæmon (pronounced "demon"), which is the physical manifestation of a person's "inner being", soul, or spirit. It takes the form of a creature (such as a moth, bird, dog, monkey, or snake) and is usually the opposite sex to its human counterpart. The dæmons of children have the ability to change form from one creature to another, but near the end of a child's puberty, their dæmon "settles" into a permanent form, which reflects the person's personality. When a person dies, the dæmon dies too. Armoured bears, cliff ghasts and other creatures do not have dæmons. An armoured bear's armour is his soul.

Title

Europe a Prophecy, copy D, object 1 (Bentley 1, Erdman i, Keynes i) British Museum.jpg God-Architect.jpg

Left: God wielding the golden compasses, by William Blake. Right: Jesus as geometer in a 13th-century medieval illuminated manuscript of unknown authorship.

During pre-publication of the novel, the prospective trilogy was known in Britain as The Golden Compasses, an allusion to God's poetic delineation of the world. The term is from a line in Milton's Paradise Lost , [6] where it denotes the drafting compass God used to establish and set a circular boundary of all creation:

Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he centred, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure

— Book 7, lines 224–229

In the US, publisher Knopf had been calling the first book The Golden Compass (singular), which it mistakenly understood as a reference to Lyra's alethiometer (depicted on the front cover shown at the head of this article), because of the device's resemblance to a navigational compass. By the time Pullman had replaced The Golden Compasses with His Dark Materials as the name of the trilogy, the US publisher had become so attached to the original title that it insisted on publishing the first book as The Golden Compass rather than as Northern Lights, the title used in Britain and Australia. [6]

Critical reception

Awards

Pullman won both the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books [4] and the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for Northern Lights, an award which authors can only win once in their lifetime. [7] Six books have won both awards in 45 years through 2011. [a]

In the US, The Golden Compass was named Booklist Editors Choice – Top of the List, Publishers Weekly Book of the Year, a Horn Book Fanfare Honor Book, and a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book in 1996. [8]

Religion

Some critics have asserted that the trilogy and the movie portray organised churches and religion negatively, [9] [10] while others – notably Dr Rowan Williams, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury – have argued that Pullman's works should be included in religious-education courses. [11] Journalist Peter Hitchens views the series His Dark Materials as a direct rebuttal of The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. [12] Literary critic Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College in Illinois suggested that Pullman had recast the Narnia series, replacing a theist world-view with a Rousseauist one. [13]

Adaptations

New Line Cinema released a feature-film adaptation of the novel named The Golden Compass in December 2007. Chris Weitz adapted the novel and also directed the film. Dakota Blue Richards, in her film debut, played Lyra. The cast included Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Ian McKellen, Sam Elliott, Derek Jacobi, and Christopher Lee.

In 1996 Natasha Richardson narrated an audiobook version of Northern Lights. The trilogy, His Dark Materials, was abridged in a dramatisation by BBC Worldwide, published on 1 January 2003. It was also adapted unabridged and released by BBC Audiobooks, narrated by Philip Pullman. The cast includes: Joanna Wyatt as Lyra, Alison Dowling as Mrs Coulter, Seán Barrett as Lord Asriel and Iorek Byrnison, and Stephen Thorne as the Master and Farder Coram. An audiobook version narrated by Pullman and featuring a full cast was released in 1999. [14]

The National Theatre in London staged a two-part adaptation of the trilogy in 2003–2004.

Sega released a video game of the movie adaptation of the book, titled The Golden Compass and developed by Shiny Entertainment, on 4 December 2007. Players assume the role of Lyra as she travels through the frozen wastes of the North in an attempt to rescue her friend kidnapped by a mysterious organisation known as the Gobblers. Travelling with her are an armoured polar bear and her dæmon Pantalaimon (Pan). Together, they must use a truth-telling alethiometer and other items to explore the land and fight their way through confrontations to help Lyra's friend. The Golden Compass features a mix of fighting and puzzle-solving with three characters. [15]

On 3 November 2019, BBC One began broadcast of their TV adaptation of His Dark Materials. This first series mainly covers events from Northern Lights. It premiered on HBO on 4 November 2019 in the United States. The series was produced by Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema [16] and directed by Tom Hooper. Cast members included Dafne Keen, James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ian Gelder, and Ruta Gedmintas.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Alternatively, six authors have won the Carnegie Medal for their Guardian Prize-winning books. Professional librarians confer the Carnegie and select the winner from all British children's books. The Guardian newspaper's prize winner is selected by British children's writers, "peers" of the author who has not yet won it, for one children's (age 7+) or young-adult fiction book. The nationality of winning authors and publishers has varied.

Related Research Articles

<i>His Dark Materials</i> Novel trilogy by Philip Pullman

His Dark Materials is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman consisting of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000). It follows the coming of age of two children, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as they wander through a series of parallel universes. The novels have won a number of awards, including the Carnegie Medal in 1995 for Northern Lights and the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year for The Amber Spyglass. In 2003, the trilogy was ranked third on the BBC's The Big Read poll.

Lyra Belacqua, later known as Lyra Silvertongue, is the heroine of Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials. In His Dark Materials Lyra is a young girl who inhabits a universe parallel to our own. Brought up in the cloistered world of Jordan College, Oxford, she finds herself embroiled in a cosmic war between Lord Asriel on one side, and a deity figure known as The Authority and his Regent, Metatron, on the other. Lyra also features prominently in the subsequent trilogy The Book of Dust.

<i>The Subtle Knife</i> 1997 novel by Philip Pullman

The Subtle Knife is a young-adult fantasy novel published in 1997 and the second book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The novel continues the adventures of Lyra Belacqua recounted in the first novel, Northern Lights, as she investigates the mysterious phenomenon of Dust. Will Parry is introduced as a companion to Lyra, and together they explore new worlds in the search for Will's father.

<i>The Amber Spyglass</i> 2000 novel by Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass is the third and final novel in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Published in 2000, it won the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year award, the first children's novel to do so. It was named Children's Book of the Year at the 2001 British Book Awards, and was the first children's book to be longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Will Parry is one of the protagonists in Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials, along with Lyra Belacqua. He first appears in the series at the start of the second novel, The Subtle Knife, and continues through to the final book, The Amber Spyglass. Introduced as a 12-year-old boy, he meets and befriends Lyra in the world of Cittàgazze and teams up with her in order to uncover the mysteries of Dust and the disappearance of his father many years previously. He takes possession of the Subtle Knife which he uses to aid Lord Asriel in his bid to destroy the Authority.

Dust (<i>His Dark Materials</i>) Fictional particle in His Dark Materials trilogy

In Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust trilogies, Dust or Rusakov particles are particles associated with consciousness that are integral to the plot. In the multiverse in which these trilogies are set, Dust is attracted to consciousness, especially after puberty; the Church within the series associates Dust with original sin and seeks its end. Pullman described Dust in an interview as "an analogy of consciousness, and consciousness is this extraordinary property we have as human beings".

Dæmon (<i>His Dark Materials</i>) Fictional being from Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials

A dæmon is a type of fictional being in the Philip Pullman fantasy trilogies His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust. Dæmons are the external physical manifestation of a person's "inner-self" that takes the form of an animal. Dæmons have human intelligence, are capable of human speech—regardless of the form they take—and usually behave as though they are independent of their humans. Pre-pubescent children's dæmons can change form voluntarily to become any creature, real or imaginary. During adolescence a person's dæmon undergoes "settling", an event in which that person's dæmon permanently and involuntarily assumes the form of the animal which the person most resembles in character. Dæmons are usually of the opposite sex to their human, though same-sex dæmons do exist.

Lord Asriel is a character in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Asriel is a member of the aristocracy in a parallel universe dominated by the Church. Possessed of enormous determination and willpower, he is fierce in nature and commands great respect in both the political and academic spheres, being a military leader and a fellow of Jordan College in his world's version of Exeter College, Oxford.

Marisa Coulter, known simply as Mrs. Coulter, is a character in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and one of the main antagonists of Northern Lights: the former lover of Lord Asriel and biological mother of Lyra Belacqua.

<i>The Golden Compass</i> (film) 2007 film directed by Chris Weitz

The Golden Compass is a 2007 fantasy adventure film written and directed by Chris Weitz that is based on the 1995 novel Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, the first installment in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which was published as The Golden Compass in the United States. It stars Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra Belacqua, Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter, and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, alongside Sam Elliott, Ian McKellen, and Eva Green. In the film, Lyra joins a race of water-workers and seafarers on a trip to the far North in search of children kidnapped by the Gobblers, a group supported by the world's rulers, the Magisterium.

<i>The Golden Compass</i> (video game) 2007 video game

The Golden Compass is a 2007 action-adventure puzzle video game developed by Shiny Entertainment for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Wii, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows, and by A2M for Nintendo DS. The game was published on all platforms by Sega, and was released in Europe in November 2007, and in North America in December. It is the video game of the 2007 film of the same name, although it is also partially based on the 1995 novel upon which the film is based, Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. The game was released prior to the film and features a slightly different sequence of events towards the end of the story, as well as additional footage at the end of the game not seen in the film. This was due to a last minute re-edit of the last half-hour of the film by New Line Cinema, which could not be incorporated into the game, as it was based on the shooting script. Due to this the game manages to portray motives and themes of the book in much more detail, including details only present in later books of the trilogy. The Golden Compass was the last game developed by Shiny before Foundation 9 Entertainment merged them with The Collective. A significant feature has Dakota Blue Richards and Freddie Highmore reprising their roles from the film.

<i>Once Upon a Time in the North</i> 2008 novel by Philip Pullman

Once Upon a Time in the North is a 2008 novella by Philip Pullman. The book serves as a prequel to Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The premise of the story involves the meeting of Iorek Byrnison and Lee Scoresby:

I've just finished a short book which will be coming out next spring, probably March or April in this country. It's called Once Upon A Time in the North, and it's about Lee and Iorek. When we see them for the first time with Lyra, Lee is not that old; he's fifty, sixty, something like that, so they know each other for a long time. But I wanted to write a story when they first met as they were young, and I've just written it. I'm making a little book like Lyra's Oxford.

His Dark Materials is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman consisting of Northern Lights (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000). This is a list of the fictional races and creatures in the novels.

This article covers the fictional locations in the His Dark Materials trilogy and related works by Philip Pullman.

His Dark Materials is a play written by British playwright Nicholas Wright, adapted from the Philip Pullman fantasy novel trilogy of the same title. The production premiered in the Royal National Theatre's Olivier Theatre, London, in 2003. Due to the complications in staging a piece containing the narrative of three books, the play was performed in two parts in alternate performances. The play is published by Nick Hern Books.

<i>The Secret Commonwealth</i> 2019 novel by Philip Pullman

The Secret Commonwealth is a 2019 fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, the second volume of his planned trilogy The Book of Dust. The story is set twenty years or so after the events of La Belle Sauvage and ten years after the conclusion of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Lyra Silvertongue is now an adult.

<i>La Belle Sauvage</i> 2017 novel by Philip Pullman

La Belle Sauvage is a fantasy novel by Philip Pullman published in 2017. It is the first volume of a planned trilogy titled The Book of Dust and is set twelve years before Pullman's His Dark Materials. It presents events prior to the arrival of the six-month-old Lyra Belacqua at Jordan College, Oxford.

<i>His Dark Materials</i> (TV series) 2019 British fantasy television series

His Dark Materials is a fantasy drama television series based on the trilogy of novels by Philip Pullman. It is produced by Bad Wolf and New Line Productions, for BBC One and HBO, with the latter handling international distribution. The show follows the orphan Lyra as she searches for a missing friend and discovers a kidnapping plot related to an invisible cosmic substance called Dust.

<i>Serpentine</i> (book) 2020 novella by Philip Pullman

Serpentine is a fantasy novella written by Philip Pullman, set after the events of his His Dark Materials trilogy and before the events of The Secret Commonwealth, the second book of his The Book of Dust trilogy. The manuscript was originally sold at a charity auction in 2004 and the book was publicly released in October 2020.

References

  1. 1 2 3 His Dark Materials series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
  2. ↑ "Northern lights". Library of Congress Catalog Record (LCC). Retrieved 28 July 2012.
  3. 1 2 "The golden compass" (first US edition). LCC record. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
  4. 1 2 Carnegie Winner 1995 Archived 24 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine . Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  5. ↑ "70 Years Celebration: Anniversary Top Tens" Archived 27 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine . The CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards. CILIP. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
  6. 1 2 "Frequently Asked Questions – Why is the trilogy called His Dark Materials? Why are there two different titles for the first book?". BridgeToTheStars.net. Retrieved 20 August 2007.
  7. ↑ "Guardian children's fiction prize relaunched: Entry details and list of past winners". The Guardian 12 March 2001. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  8. ↑ "BCCB Blue Ribbon Book | Book awards | LibraryThing". www.librarything.com. Retrieved 30 January 2019.
  9. ↑ "Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked". 22 October 2007.
  10. ↑ La Crosse Tribune – Bishop Listecki: 'Golden Compass' points to evil.
  11. ↑ Petre, Jonathan (10 March 2004). "Williams backs Pullman". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 2 February 2010.
  12. ↑ Hitchens, Peter (18 January 2003). "A labour of loathing". The Spectator. Retrieved 21 September 2006.
  13. ↑ "Audition – Program 10 (On Philip Pullman)". Mars Hill Audio. 6 November 2007. Archived from the original on 10 November 2014. Retrieved 13 November 2007. With MP3 audio recording.
  14. ↑ "THE GOLDEN COMPASS by Philip Pullman Read by a Full Cast | Audiobook Review". AudioFile Magazine. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
  15. ↑ Ryan Clements (7 January 2008). "The Golden Compass Review: Not as magical as you might hope". IGN Entertainment. Retrieved 13 September 2019. Review of the video game.
  16. ↑ Barraclough, Leo (3 November 2015). "BBC Greenlights TV Series Based on Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials'". Variety.
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Preceded by Carnegie Medal recipient
1995		Succeeded by
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