Book Thoughts: Golden Compass & Subtle Knife

[orangerful]

Finally finished listening to 'Golden Compass'. I just went ahead and added all 3 of the nice, new 10th Anniversary Editions to my Amazon wishlist so I can own them, because I can already tell, I will want to read these books on my own later.

And why did I think these books were so much older than they are? They are only 10 years old! For some reason, I thought they were from the 1950s! Silly me, I think I just decided they were the antithesis of C.S. Lewis books and figured they must be contempiraries.



blu_harvest had told me about the religious/atheist angles that were in the story, and that they were not disguised as Lions or Witches. Pullman comes right out and says it. I had my copy of 'Subtle Knife' in the car, ready to go as soon as the last disc of Compass ended.

When Asrael reveals that Dust is "original sin", I actually let out an audible "ooooooh!" Oh, Danieil Craig will play him well...he's perfect. I can see him toying with the audience - am I a bad ass? Or just a bastard? (The scene when he sees Lyra and screams "NO NOT YOU I DID NOT SEND FOR YOU!" oh ho ho that was awesome!)

The scene where it looked like Pan was going to be cut away from Lyra, that was intense! As was the battle between Iorek and the big, dumb, smelly king.

Golden Compass is a pretty straight forward adventure in another world, but Subtle Knife...that threw me for a loop in those first few chapters with Will. I was like "what the heck is going on? Are they...here?" And I guess I didn't realize how different Lyra's world was until she was trying to blend in in ours. But I love it! I didn't' see it coming at all! I didn't know there was dimension hopping!

Lyra is talking to Dr Malone right now. She just made the Dust show up on the computer screen and she's trying to make it form images that the doctor can understand.

And wtf - the alethiometer tells Lyra that Will is a murderer and she's ok with that hahaha. She's like "ooh well that might come in handly later" LOL! But part of me thinks Will might have inherited some of his Mom's crazyness. Though I'm sure it will turn out that she isn't crazy at all...ooooh what is in that little green baggy!

Oh, I got at least one spoiler for book 3 though. I made the mistake of looking at the back of the box (I wanted to see if it was the same voice cast!) and one of the characters was listed as "ghost of...". D'oh!

I can see how easy it is to make a movie of this book. Lots of action and adventure. I'm a bit nervous about all the kids that are going to come in asking to read it. Kids that are probably far too young to read it. Ugh, I hope we do not have parents freaking out when they get to book 2 and Asrael's plot to find god and kill him is revealed.

Anyway, I am loving this series! Not at all what I thought it would be.

The library seems to have purchased everything else written by Pullman now, so I'm thinking once I finish the 'Dark Materials' series, I might try some of his other stuff. I like his style!

Comments

[jellibean.livejournal.com]

*shields eyes from spoilers* I just started The Golden Compass today. I reeeaaally like it. I got the boxed set.

Huh, I didn't know they were 10 years old... I thought they'd just come out. Oops. ^_^;

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

LOL, there is a joke to be made there...but it might be spoilery haha.

Read quickly!!! I want to know what you think!!!

[bitter-moss.livejournal.com]

His Dark Materials is *such* an amazing series :). The last book is bar far th best, it will blow your mind and make you cry (well thats what it did to me anyway :D. I think both the Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass left me in tears and in awe. Amazing, amazing books).

[mlle-chosette.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't even realise they were 10 years old already! I took the first one to France with me in 2004 and then ended up paying twice normal price for imported ones from an English-language bookshop because I was so desperate to read books 2 & 3 :-) . I really love the series, but for some reason haven't got around to reading any of his other books yet. I saw His Dark Materials as a play, too, which was cool - wonderful puppet-daemons :-) .

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Okay, the play sounds cool. I would love to see how that was done on stage!

[bittertwee.livejournal.com]

ok, it's taken me a while to get around to repsonding to this, so god only knows how far along in the books you are by now. Since I'm not the one who has to deal with it, I HOPE you have parents coming in and freaking out.. See, I think this is all part of Pullman's master plan- The movie gets made with the cuddly wuddly daemons and the CGI bear and the special effects and marketing tie-ins, and everyone thinks the books are safe, when.. wait.. they didn't say THAT in the movie! Oh my! You didn't hear that, little Johnny. Go off to bed now. We'll pick another book to read tomorrow night.. heh

I love Mary and Will. None of the characters in the first book really grabbed me either way, but the series really came alive for me when Will and then Mary show up. The last book has more of a "masterpiece" feel to it (apparently it's based on Paradise Lost), but the second book had a tighter story, for me at least, so I think it's my favorite.

One good thing about listening as opposed to reading is that you hear rather than read "aesahaettr". How is that pronounced anyway? Every time it appeared I had to giggle because I read it as "asshatter".

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

geez louise, what the hell is "aesahaettr"??? haha. I thought they same thing when you typed it here "Asshatter?"

Seriously, just looking at "Iorek" on the back of the cd case got me confused. I never would have known how to pronounce half of the names!

Though...on the downside, I have no idea how to spell the name of the other world with the tower, where will gets the knife. Gi'gatzi?

I just read the blurb in Entertainment Weekly about 'Golden Compass' and now I'm scared. I had no idea the writer/director was the guy who wrote and directed "American Pie". Hm...though he said he actually got cold feet after seeing Peter Jackson work on LotR and quit. But then the second director quit due to "differences" so he came back. Weird. Plus, they said most of the religious stuff has been removed. Though how can they know! 'Golden Compass' has the least of it so far.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

OH! I got to hear them say asshatter today! Only it sounds absolutely NOTHING like what it looks like. It's all phlegmy and in the back of their throats. Ugh, I was going to try to type it on phonetically, but now I've lost the sounds...If you hadn't shown me this word, I would have had no idea what the sound was they were making.

[bittertwee.livejournal.com]

hmm.. Well, I just checked wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesahaettr
and assuming they're using the international phonetic alphabet, their pronunciation looks a LOT like "asshatter" ([ae] is the "a" sound in "hat"). I'm assuming that Pullman invented the word, and probably did so before "asshat" was widely used?

Also, note that the all knowing wikipedia disagrees with itself here:
http://wikipedia.cas.ilstu.edu/index.php/His_Dark_Materials
But I'm inclined to say that whoever wrote these might not know what they are talking about, since no matter how you pronounce "alethiometer", they've given it a very unlikely syllabification (ha, I knew that linguistics knowledge would come in handy someday!).

A bit more discussion here:
http://aesahaettr.org/faq/

Ok, that's probably more than enough on the subject!

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

this reply will be featured in the next edition of "linguists gone wild!" lol.

So you are not alone in your asshatter-y. I need to be careful, some story spoilers are probably dropped all over those entries. My eyes started to wander and I already had an 'O Rly?" moment. hehe.

Only 1 1/2 discs to go in 'subtle knife'!!!

[bittertwee.livejournal.com]

oops- I was only thinking about the pronunciations and forgot about spoilers. Sorry about that!

I just read on one of the wikipedia pages that "Prior to resigning he [the first director] rejected a script by Tom Stoppard and controversially indicated that the film would make no direct mention of religion due to the viewpoint the books suggest." I knew from you about the first director resigning, and I knew that Tom Stoppard was on the project a long time ago and isn't part of it now, but I didn't relate the two. Now I *really* want to get my hands on the Stoppard script! Think it's possible?

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

wow, that would be quite a read. Stoppard should have it "accidentally leak" from his site. heehee (hey, if HP7 can get leaked, how hard could this be!)

Also, I found this quote interesting - Weitz stated that New Line Cinema feared that "perceived antireligiosity" would make the film financially unviable in the US.

The US. Not just in general, but the US. Interesting. The rest of the world doesn't have a knee jerk reaction to this stuff like the US does. :\ Too bad they can't make two versions. I was hoping that Pullman had kept more control over it.

and I just now finished Subtle Knife.