NORTHERN LIGHTS

Philip Pullman, Scholastic Point, US$17.99

This is the first part of a trilogy of books by Philip Pullman called His Dark Materials. Now a film starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, and renamed, The Golden Compass, Northern Lights is a marvellously dark tale of magic and a 12-year-old girl’s quest to save not just this world, but possibly other worlds visible in the aurora, or northern lights of the title. The action takes us from Jordan College in Oxford to the North Pole via the Fens and Scandinavia, in the company of gypsies (called here gentians) and with various fabulous creatures including talking, and fighting polar bears. Much is recognisable, but much is different, not least because each human has a daemon, a spirit, physically present and visible to others in the form of an animal.

On one level, this is a coming-of-age tale, as the plucky heroine, Lyra Belacqua, learns she is not an orphan, has special powers over an alethiometer, a special instrument which, in the right hands, can predict the future and yet who struggles to avoid a fate of betraying her best friends. (This is the Golden Compass of the film title. Presumably Golden Alethiometer wouldn’t have been so easy to sell.)

On another level, the book is quite clearly a critique of organised religion and has been recognised and criticised as such by religious groups. It is also a wonderfully told tale, as likely to entrance a jaded business traveller as, well, a 12-year-old girl.

While buying the first part of this trilogy, save yourself some time (and possibly money if there is a special offer), and buy all three. After the first 20 pages, you are as likely to be addicted as every one of the other millions who have found this alternate world to be no more strange than the one in which we find ourselves.

Tom Otley