Northern Lights

I am sure that many of you have read Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy. Perhaps greater numbers have now seen the first book as translated into big screen form.

I am not going to go into great depth about either the novels or the film. I am sure that reviewers the world over are already battling that one out for themselves. What I will say, is that there are four things that made the books quite special for this one insignificant soul:

1. The lead character, Lyra, is an eleven / twelve year old girl who has more spunk than Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker and Frodo Baggins put together. She has no girlie traits whatsoever and displays little of the brainwashed stupidity inherent in most fictional young ladies.


2. Whilst the trilogy is steeped in wild fantastical ideas, it seems to root itself in a wonderfully gritty realism, and the side of good is the side of grit. Water gypsies, an alcoholic bear and a mercenary aeronaut are key figures in the trilogy’s first offering; and the gypsies don’t steal tarmac and rob old ladies.
   
3. His Dark Materials, despite being sold as a children’s trilogy, does not shy away from intellectual or philosophical content. It is extremely damning of organised religion and the corruption of authority.


4. In my edition of the last book in the trilogy, ‘The Amber Spyglass’, Philip Pullman makes the following acknowledgement: “I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read. My principle in researching for a novel is ‘Read like a butterfly, write like a bee’, and if this story contains any honey, it is entirely because of the quality of the nectar I found in the work of better writers.”

I also have four things to say about the film adaptation of the first book:

1. It is called 'The Golden Compass' and not 'Northern Lights'. This is because most North American’s have never heard of the Northern Lights. In a poll of ten thousand North Americans, 98% of respondents thought that the Northern Lights were the lights of Las Vegas. Note to all North Americans, Nevada isn’t even in the north. The North Pole isn’t a metal rod in a strip club either. You may hear stories that 'The Golden Compass' is a phrase taken from Milton’s Paradise Lost (book 7), a poem that was highly influential on the trilogy:
         "He took the golden compasses, prepared
         In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
         This Universe, and all created things"
   That’s just a happy coincidence; North American’s can’t read, let alone read poems.


2. The child playing the lead is true to form and is by no means a girlie girl. Her accent drifts in and out of a strange breed of mockney, but hey, what middle class child playing at being poor doesn’t sometimes slip into finely spoken English in real life?


3. Whilst the film manages to retain some of the grit of the book, it often feels like it is slipping towards yet another big screen portrayal of 101 Dalmatians; the dogs are played by children and Cruella de Vil is played by Nicole Kidman in true Disney form. It’s certainly no ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’, a bore bathed in saccharine, but it certainly hasn’t escaped a coating of sickly sugary paste.


4. Perhaps what makes the trilogy truly gritty is its open rejection of religion and its continual criticism of the way that religious institutions provide for an extreme abuse of power, in the name of belief systems that claim to represent all that's good. Of course, it’s not surprising that this wasn’t hugely apparent in the film. That said; it certainly had an anti-authoritarian feel throughout and I enjoyed the spirit of rebellion when it came to the fore.

I hope that the films and books inspire girls to resist becoming stereotypical feminine parodies of themselves, and that they encourage everyone to question our institutions and the powers that be. Talking about a revolution, oh no... Talking about a revolution.