NORTHERN LIGHTS (NOVEL)

'''Northern Lights''' is the first novel in the ''His Dark Materials'' series, written by British novelist Philip Pullman and published in 1995.
The superficial resemblance of protagonist Lyra Belacqua's alethiometer (depicted on the book's cover) to a large compass caused the North American publishers of ''Northern Lights'' to retitle the book '''The Golden Compass'''.^[1] In fact, ''The Golden Compasses'' was an early proposal for the name of the trilogy (instead of ''His Dark Materials''), taken from Milton's ''Paradise Lost'', where it refers to the drawing instrument, rather than the navigation instrument.¹
''Northern Lights'' won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in the UK in 1995^[2], and in 2007 it was selected by judges of the Carnegie Medal as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years.

Contents

Plot summary

Film

Video game

See also

Further reading

References

External links

Plot summary

The story begins when Lyra Belacqua—an orphaned, eleven year old girl residing at Jordan College—secretly enters the Retiring Room, despite resistance from her dæmon, Pantalaimon; an animal-formed, shape-shifting manifestation of her soul. Inside the room, they see the Master of Jordan College attempt to poison Lord Asriel, Lyra's uncle. Lord Asriel shows the resident scholars a picture of mysterious elementary particles called Dust. Shortly afterwards Lord Asriel goes north, and Lyra continues with her normal life.
However, before long her friend Roger is kidnapped by "the Gobblers", who are the subject of a children's superstition. Lyra vows to rescue him, and finds her chance when a visiting woman of great importance, Mrs. Coulter, offers to take Lyra away from Jordan College to become her apprentice. Lyra assents, but before she leaves is entrusted with a priceless object by the Master of the College: an alethiometer. Resembling a golden compass, it is a device able to reveal the answer to any question asked by the user. Although initially unable to read or understand its complex meanings, Lyra takes it with her to Mrs Coulter's flat. Before long, Lyra becomes suspicious of Mrs. Coulter's motives when Mrs Coulter's dæmon searches Lyra's room for the alethiometer.
At a party hosted by Mrs. Coulter, Lyra discovers that Mrs. Coulter is the head of a church organization known as the "General Oblation Board" and that this board is, in fact, the "Gobblers" who have been kidnapping children. The horror of this discovery causes Lyra to take advantage of the hubbub of the party to flee Mrs. Coulter's flat.
After fleeing the flat she is rescued by the gyptians, a group of nomadic, canal-boat-dwelling people, who afterwards reveal that Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter are none other than Lyra's father and mother. She also learns that many children like Roger have been disappearing from among the gyptians, and that the gyptians are planning an expedition to the north to rescue the missing children. During her time with the gyptians, Lyra inexplicably learns how to operate the alethiometer without the appropriate tutorship and references.
Lyra joins the expedition to the north, and on the journey discovers that the children kidnapped by “the Gobblers” are having their dæmons cut away from them in experiments. Shortly after this revelation, the group is attacked, and Lyra is taken to the experimentation facility in Bolvangar.
Inside it she locates Roger and builds up a plan of escape, but gets caught trying to flee. Lyra once again comes across Mrs Coulter who is trying to steal the alethiometer. Narrowly escaping her clutches once again, Lyra leads the other children out of the facility, and is rescued by Lee Scoresby (an aeronaut who is under the hire of the gyptians) in his hot air balloon, who also takes Roger and an armoured bear called Iorek Byrnison with him. Iorek is an exiled prince of the armoured bears, of whose culture he is a perfect example.
Now Lyra has found Roger, she wishes to deliver the alethiometer to Lord Asriel, who is imprisoned at Svalbard, the fortress of the armoured bears, because of his experiments on Dust, which the Church opposes. On their way to Svalbard the balloon is attacked by cliff-ghasts, and Lyra gets thrown out, although managing to land safely. She is then captured by the armoured bears, but manages to trick the usurping bear-king, Iofur Raknison, into allowing Iorek Byrnison to restore his throne. Thereafter she travels to Lord Asriel’s cabin accompanied by both Iorek and Roger.
Despite being imprisoned, Lord Asriel is so influential that he has managed to accumulate the necessary equipment to continue his experiments on Dust. After explaining the nature of Dust, which is an emanation from another world (ours) and the existence of parallel universes to Lyra, he takes Roger, along with large amounts of equipment, with him into the snowy distance. Once Lyra realizes what has happened, she pursues and beats Mrs Coulter's soldiers to him, only to arrive too late to save Roger, who is killed when Lord Asriel separates him from his dæmon. This act releases an enormous amount of energy, which, due to Lord Asriel’s equipment, tears a hole through the sky into a parallel world. Lord Asriel walks through into the new world; on the advice of Pantalaimon, Lyra decides to follow him.

Film

A feature film adaptation of the novel, titled, '', produced by New Line Cinema with a budget of $150 million, is scheduled to be released December 7, 2007. The screenplay was adapted from the novel by Academy Award-winning playwright Tom Stoppard and writer/director Chris Weitz, who also directed the film. Lyra is played by Dakota Blue Richards, in her feature film debut, with Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Ian McShane, John Hurt and Sam Elliott rounding out the rest of the cast.

Video game

A video game adaptation of the movie adaption of the book, titled, "The Golden Compass", published by Sega and developed by Shiny Entertainment, is currently in production. 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 organization known as The Gobblers. Travelling with her are an armored 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 in order to help Lyra's friend. The Golden Compass will feature a mix of fighting and puzzle solving with three characters. The game is set to be released alongside the film this December.^[3]

See also

★ 1995 in literature

★ His Dark Materials

★ Trepanning

★ Steampunk

Further reading

★ His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on Phillip Pullman's Trilogy, , Millicent, Lenz, Wayne State University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8143-3207-2

References

1. Frequently Asked Questions
2. Living Archive - Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners
3. The Golden Compass Game

External links

★ The Golden Compass Reviewed at The Open Critic

★ HisDarkMaterials.com ''Publisher's site''

★ His Dark Materials | BridgetotheStars.Net ''fansite''

★ HisDarkMaterials.org ''fansite''

★ Philip Pullman reads a manuscript extract (audio)