Northern Lights – Phillip Pullman

Northern Lights – Phillip Pullman          5/10

The first of the wildly successful His Dark Materials trilogy, Northern Lights is the tale of Lyra Belacqua and her quest to rescue her friend Roger from the frozen North, as well as discover what has happened to her uncle.

I found this book enjoyable, but probably not enough to read the next two in the trilogy. I think my pre-conception of it being a ‘children’s book’ meant that I was probably more forgiving than I would have otherwise been. Yet, I still found a number of elements of the writing frustrating.

I don’t think Pullman deals with action description very well. Perhaps his aim is to paint a confusing picture, but at times I found it too confusing. I also think that whilst his descriptions of Oxford and London are quite vivid, when the characters travel to the North the picture falters. The first part of the book moves at a good pace, but this then suddenly accelerates towards the end. It may well be that this was Pullman’s intention, to convey (If you’ll forgive a pun) the snowballing effect of events. Or it may be that he planned it badly.

Some of the dialogue I found stunted, although possibly it is supposed to be accessible for children (I think children probably fair better if you don’t patronise them, J K Rowling realised that after her first two Harry Potter books). Whilst his characterisation is generally really strong, I found the character of Lyra to be the weakest and most conflicting.

That being said I do like the way he creates a parallel Earth that he doesn’t overload you with immediately. At first the differences seem subtle, but he gradually introduces more and more of his created universe to the reader as you go through the book and I found the results quite pleasing. I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of Science Fiction per se, but I won’t immediately dismiss the genre and I think learning about Pullman’s created world was one of the more enjoyable parts of the book.

As I mentioned earlier, I like the characters. I think the rag-tag band they collect to go North add a good range of flavour to the novel. Iorek Byrnison in particular brings a brooding, dark, heroic element to the book that really drives the narrative on in the second half. I also really like the idea of each human character having an individual dæmon. Reflecting human emotions through an external being is an interesting plot device, plus it immediately leaves the reader wondering what animal they would choose if they had a dæmon – an inventive way to capture attention.

I can understand why they’re popular books, and I can also understand why they’re not quite as popular as they should be. That aside I think I would have really enjoyed this as a 12 year old.

My dæmon would be a badger.