In the third chapter of The Golden Compass, Phillip Pullman stretches out the narrative to describe to us the rich and detailed world that Lyra lives in, complete with a much more full background on who she is. In the process of doing so, he introduces the Gobblers, a set of alleged kidnappers who are apparently taking children to be eaten. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read The Golden Compass.
Well, now we’re getting to the real shit, aren’t we?
CHAPTER THREE: LYRA’S JORDAN
I didn’t understand the name of this chapter until near the end, when I understood that this was Pullman’s way of showing us that Lyra, stuck between two worlds, has to make everything hers in order to feel some control. She’s born of nobility, yet she appears to have absolutely nothing in common with those at Jordan College, as she’s drawn more towards those of the underclass than anyone else.
I’ve got my confirmation that this is in Britain, specifically Oxford, and that Lyra goes to one of the most prestigious and honored schools in all of Europe. (Well, to her, that is. Which is a strange notion, but one that I think represents her well: She will defend Jordan College to the death, yet she feels almost no affinity towards anyone who actually goes there, including the staff.)
Like Harry Potter, I think a lot of the details of this are hard to grasp because of the direct parallels to the way classes are divided in Britain, which are distinctly different from how we view class in America. As I trudged through this (very long), yet still fascinating chapter, I struggled with all of the information that Pullman sent my way. This was nowhere near as disorienting as the experience with chapter two, as Pullman was much quicker to define a lot of the names, characters, and other such details before moving on.
I get a much, much better sense of the physical layout of Jordan College, and how all that relates to Lyra’s life. It’s a massive, sprawling campus, and I love the idea that its organization was not planned, but a “piecemeal†assemblage of buildings and spaces that evolved over time. I learn about how Jordan affects the surrounding “kingdom,†which makes me wonder how this whole nation is organized in terms of political power, but I assume that’s a journey for a later chapter. What’s important for me to note is that the college basically has it’s own economic system of support, through the mass amount of land that they own, and that the money that goes into the place inherently support the ongoing explorations of Lyra. (I mean, obviously the people running Jordan College would never think such a thing, but the college itself feels like a secondary character because it influences Lyra so much.
This chapter also introduces the idea that Jordan College is the “center of experimental theologyâ€:
As for what experimental theology was, Lyra had no more idea than the urchins. She had formed the notion that it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really.
As far as I’m concerned, any theory I might have is all guesswork, too. I imagine that the excitement expressed by the Scholars during Lord Asriel’s visit hints that whatever The Dust is, it has everything to do with experimental theology. Of course, knowing that this series is “controversial†because of its stance on religion, I wonder how this all fits together. If the experimental theologists accept a theology anyway, why are people so quick to say that this series is “atheist†and such things? Obviously, I am completely ignorant to what His Dark Materials is actually about, and I kind of like that. I think that so much attention was paid to the fact that Pullman was an atheist that maybe what is in here is nowhere near that “shocking.†But this is certainly a ridiculous thing to discuss at this point, since I’m basically teasing you with the fact that you can’t actually discuss this series with me for now, so I’ll move on. I SWEAR, WE’LL GET THERE.
I’m actually enjoying the fact that, for the most part, Lyra is not a particularly likable character. It was easy to be excited for her in the first two chapters, as we learn more about this world and her adventurous spying in that wardrobe. But throughout chapter three, we get a much bigger idea of who she is and…well, she’s kind of an asshole, isn’t she?
This is a compliment, by the way! I mean, it’s been rather easy to either like or insert myself into the life of the main character in nearly everything I’ve read for Mark Reads. Yes, there’s Bella Swan, but I don’t count Twilight as literature. LOL GET THE JOKE. Seriously, though, I don’t dislike The Golden Compass at all, and this is a much better way to experience a character that isn’t easy to enjoy than SMeyer’s series.
I wonder what exactly makes her the way she is, and a lot of what Pullman gives here allows us to speculate about why Lyra is such a difficult person. I don’t quite know what age she is yet, but I know that part of this could probably be written off by the fact that she’s fairly young and immature. But, like I said in the beginning of this, Lyra is thrown between two worlds and her own personal morality still revolves around her own selfishness. Pullman introduces us to the “deadly warfare†of Lyra and the people she knows outside of the college, and the loving way he characterizes the situation gives us insight to the dichotomy of her life.
She is honored to go to Jordan College, but in the streets, Lyra feels far more at home throwing stone-hard plums at other children, climbing on the roofs of the school, and making allies with local groups in order to attack the brickburners’ children. This will be vastly conflicted with life inside Jordan College later, but for now, I really loved how much time Pullman spends with events that, at the time, felt like they had nothing to do with the Dust or Lord Asriel or Dr. Grumman. This was an exercise in patience and world-building, and as I’ve said countless times before, I’m the kind of reader (and watcher) who is willing to spend time slowly waiting for the right time for a story to move further. Pullman spends so much time showing us the gyptians, the brickburners, and Lyra’s life away from the school that I began to wonder what this all had to do with anything.
Lord Asriel gets a flashback to add context this all, as his visits to Lyra are part of a sign for her that she wants to belong more to the world of Scholars and politics, yet she’s unsure both how to do that and if that will actually make her feel more satisfied. Lyra is much more comfortable being vulgar, and Asriel, while harsh and powerful, is not a vulgar person at all. He questions Lyra rather diligently with every visit, and I got the sense that he knew that she was a very physical person, interested in warfare and adventures, but he wanted her to be more interested in the scholarly side of things. He asks her about the library, and I thought it was his way of seeing if she would express curiosity for what was in there.
She doesn’t, and instead he gives her a new adventure to fill her brain for the next year: there is a network of tunnels and passageways below the College. Having now read the whole chapter, perhaps this was Lord Asriel’s way of getting Lyra far more interested in the world outside of Jordan College, considering what she finds there. Of course, that’s leading me to more questions, mainly: Does Lord Asriel avoid spelling out the world for Lyra because he also knows she must later become involved in it all? Is he trying to protect her life?
I’M TOTALLY PREDICTING THE FUTURE, AREN’T I.
Pullman takes a very direct narrative turn away from Lyra and gives us a rather chilling story of the Gobblers. Well, they’re not called the Gobblers at this point, but we get a second bit of the plot for me to become completely and totally obsessed with: Tony Makarios is kidnapped.
Pullman’s style for this section is a break from when he focuses on Lyra, choosing instead to write in third-person present and, like Suzanne Collins during The Hunger Games trilogy, once you get past how odd it is, it’s actually quite successful in building a sense of dread and terror. It helps that Pullman is so descriptive about the nine-year-old boy, giving us a definite picture of him inside our heads, because it makes the plot all the more sad.
Whomever abducts this kid is manipulative and trusting at the same time, as she catches Tony stealing from a local stall holder, and she moves in when the time is right in order to do her work. This woman, who apparently must be as gorgeous and stunning as Pullman describes, has a dæmon that is a monkey with golden fur. What. What sort of message is that supposed to give other people about her status? (Don’t the appearances of a person’s dæmon imply who they are?) This specific dæmon, however, does not seem to act as the moral compass for its owner, as it also seduces Tony’s dæmon away from him as well. (Ugh, I seriously want to know more about how these spirits work.)
Using chocolate liquor to lure Tony away from the steps at St. Catherine’s, this mysterious woman takes the boy to a warehouse where there are a small collection of boys and girls his age. It’s at this point that the familiar confusion from chapter two creeped back into me, as the thieving lady addresses the group when one boy finally asks why she has gathered these kids together.
“We want your help,†she said. “You don’t mind helping us, do you?â€
No one could say a word. They all gazed, suddenly shy. They had never seen a lady like this; she was so gracious and sweet and kind that they felt they hardly deserved their good luck, and whatever she asked, they’d give it gladly so as to stay in her presence a little longer.
Yep, that’s creepy. She feeds on the desires of the needy to feel wanted and content. When she tells them that they are going to “the North,†I knew this was no coincidence. Whatever is happening there with the Dust most certainly has to do with why she piles all dozen kids or so onto a boat that is to set sail up there with them aboard. But though I don’t know what it is she wants with the children or what possible help they could provide, I do know that she is one awful human being.
She tells each of the kids that they could send a message home to whomever they wanted, and she obediently writes what these children dictate, placing them into “scented envelopes,†patting their heads, giving them affection, and promising to pass these messages on. She sends these children off, full of hope and anticipation for the adventure to come.
Then she turned back inside, with the golden monkey nestled in her breast, and threw the little bundle of letters into the furnace before leaving the way she had come.
OH NO YOU DIDN’T. I don’t like this woman. Not in the slightest.
Pullman turns this singular incident into a fairy tale for the people of Britain, and I do adore how accurately he conveys how something that actually happens can be twisted into a legend of sorts, like a gigantic game of telephone. This is how the name “The Gobblers†comes into existence, as many claim that the children are kidnapped in order to be eaten.
Whether that is true or not remains to be revealed, though Lyra and Pantalaimon have an interesting conversation about this towards the end. What I do know is that knowing what’s really happening makes the revelation that this has moved on to Oxford all the more eerie to me. But before we get to this (holy god, this chapter is long), Lyra takes her friend Roger down to the areas below Jordan College. It’s the first of a few adventures in the belly of the school, and in this first time, she and Roger head down to the wine cellars, curious about the alcohol held there, and I was fairly surprised that this book already had a scene with young kids getting drunk. I don’t necessarily think it’s bad at all, as it’s pretty realistic to what a lot of people I know went through, but it was just odd and unexpected. If anything, I think it was a way for Pullman to show us how much Lyra was determined to break the rules for the sake of it, to make bad decisions that she knows are bad, and to be as stubborn as possible about these things. And I must admit I smiled at this:
The funniest thing was watching their two dæmons, who seemed to be getting more and more muddled: falling over, giggling senselessly, and changing shape to look like gargoyles, each trying to be uglier than the other.
It also gives me the idea that one’s dæmon is intrisically tied to the emotions and environment that their human is in, too. Hmmm.
Lyra and Roger continue to explore the catacombs and tunnels below the school this time coming upon the crypt that holds the tombs of the past Masters of Jordan College, where I learn this interesting factoid:
As people became adult, their dæmons lost the power to change and assumed one shape, keeping it permanently.
Well, shit. How does a person’s dæmon decide what form to take? THESE ARE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS I THINK ABOUT.
I’m still not sure what the scene means yet, but Lyra finds a passage in the crypt that is lined with the skulls of Scholars. Inside the skulls, she finds coins that represent that Scholar’s dæmon. She comes back at a later point in time to play a joke and switch out a bunch of the coins with the wrong ones, only to be visited by a “night-ghast,†which is some form of ghost? So ghosts are real in this world? Either way, the three figures, meant to represent the Scholars she played her “joke†on, scare her into returning the dæmon coins to the right place. Again, this is all guesswork at this point, but maybe this will help convince her to start respecting these things she doesn’t understand and treats as a joke. MAYBE. Look, I have no idea. THERE ARE GHOSTS FOR REAL IN THIS WORLD.
But perhaps I’m just reading too much into this, especially since the scene that follows with the Intercessor sort of spells out what I’ve just said here. When the Intercessor catches Roger and Lyra leaving the crypt one day, he questions the two of them in a non-accusatory manner, more fascinated than anything else. When he dismisses Roger, the line of questioning he uses with Lyra makes it pretty obvious that more than just Asriel wishes Lyra was far more interested in what the school has to offer her. He wonders if Lyra is lonely, based on the company she keeps, and I kind of dig the fact that she doesn’t feel the desire to have the company of “nobly born children,†as the Intercessor puts it. Again, I don’t think she’s all that likable of a character yet, but that certainly doesn’t mean there’s nothing to like about her so far.
We return back to the gyptians, who are the first to lose a young child in Oxford. In particular, showing that even some of the smaller details are already important, the same family who Lyra was “at war†with at the beginning of the chapter is the first to lose a son. Ma Costa, a powerful, gigantic woman who has shown Lyra both violent anger and caring affection, interrupts that year’s horse fair when she discovers that her son has disappeared while working for a local horse trader, seemingly in an incredibly short period of time. It’s a tense situation and for a moment, I thought Lyra was going to get in a fight with the local gyptian children:
Everyone’s dæmon instantly became warlike: each child was accompanied by fangs, or claws, or bristling fur, and Pantalaimon, contemptuous of the limited imaginations of these gyptian dæmons, became a dragon the size of a deer hound.
I love the idea that Pantalaimon is offended that other dæmons are so boring. Brilliant.
Always the one to seek out an adventure, Lyra becomes involved with trying to find Billy, Ma Costa’s son, by seeking out the Gobblers with all of the local gyptian kids. This is the first example, however, of how Lyra’s quest for adventure actually disappoints her. Since the Gobblers are mere legend (and no one knows it’s actually one single woman), they of course fail at their mission, and, as Pullman writes, “the fun faded away.â€
I actually think that this is going to be a huge shifting point for Lyra, who has now become disappointed with what’s become of her desire. She learns that another child, one of the market children, has also gone missing, and her desire for adventure seems to become a desire to help. (Is this a first for her? As far as I know, it is, since it’s not about being mischievous at all.)
This hits home for her, though, when she disobeys the Porter to investigate the market child’s disappearance, too. It’s there that she realizes she hadn’t seen Roger since the morning. Back at Jordan College, the Porter confirms that Roger hasn’t been seen all day either, and the worst sense of dread and futility fills her body. Lyra, never content to stay still and accept her fate, ignores the Porter’s demands again, choosing to confront the pastry cook about Roger’s disappearance. As expected, the cook doesn’t believe the Gobblers are real, let alone the reason Roger isn’t around, and the frustration of it all consumes Lyra so wholly that she simply breaks. She heads back to her room and climbs up to her roof, that place of familiarity, and simply screams out to the world below her. Pullman’s description of that specific evening is chilling in its beauty:
The evening sky was awash with peach, apricot, cream: tender little ice-cream clouds in a wide orange sky. The spires and towers of Oxford stood around them, level but no higher; the green woods of Chateau-Vert and White Ham rose on either side to the east and west. Rooks were cawing somewhere, and bells were ringing, and from the oxpens the steady beat of a gas engine announced the ascent of the evening Royal Mail zeppelin for London.
On that roof, the Oxford sky before them, Lyra and Pantalaimon talk openly about something I’d not realized myself: when Lord Asriel presented his photos to the Master and the Scholars, one of them remarked that the Dust child was an entire child, as another had asked if that was a severed child beside Dr. Grumman. Lyra posits a horrifying theory: the children being kidnapped are SAWED IN HALF and being USED AS SLAVES.
Can Lyra just be wrong about this? THANKS, THAT IS TOO HORRIFYING A THOUGHT TO THINK OF.
We’re then introduced to Mrs. Lonsdale, the Housekeeper, and very much in-character, Lyra is kind of a raging asshole to her, unwilling to stay clean or obey her or give her the slightest bit of respect. Even her dæmon purposely tries to irritate Mrs. Lonsdale’s dæmon, which confuses me even further as to their purpose. Ok, I must admit that made me laugh, but, again, it’s not easy to like someone who is so outright rude to people who really aren’t justification for it. Which is fine, because it’s a different experience for me, and I want a different experience when I read books for this site.
We learn that Lyra has been requested by the Master for some sort of dinner with “guests.†Given the last conversation that the Master had with the librarian, I begam to hope that the Master would be telling Lyra about the Dust. Because I am selfish and suddenly unable to be patient.
However, Pullman is not at all interested in keeping my train of thought on the Dust, because then he introduces us to one of the guests at this dinner:
“Mrs. Coulter,†he said, “this is our Lyra. Lyra, come and say hello to Mrs. Coulter.â€
“Hello, Lyra,†said Mrs. Coulter.
She was beautiful and young. Her sleek black hair framed her cheeks, and her dæmon was a golden monkey.
OH YOU ARE SHITTING ME. What the hell is she doing there????
The section with little Tony I found incredibly well written and powerful.
This line in particular was so easy for me to visualize, and so horribly sad:
"She, poor drunken thing, will think he's run away, and when she remembers him, she'll think it was her fault, and sob her sorry heart out."
🙁 🙁 🙁
Pullman is certainly a talented writer, as well as having an amazing imagination.
Also, I took the night-ghast thing as being just Lyra's dream, 'cause otherwise I would have thought the event would have got more coverage, rather than just being a single paragraph. I mean, even if ghosts do exist in this world, being visited by one surely is quite a rare and significant occasion?
I was pretty sure the night-ghast thing actually happened; I always read it that the spirits of the Scholars were restless and angry about being removed from their daemons (because Lyra switched the coins) and that's what led to them haunting her.
I had it as a kind of half-ghost, half-nightmare, not quite real, not quite not, thing…
I thought so too, that it was as if the spirits had sent her a nightmare so she would put them back.
That line was so sad… Poor woman.
And I also tought that the gost thing was Lyra's dream, but when I think about it know, I'm not so sure…
Whenever I'd read the book, I'd always stop on that sad line and take a minute to think about it. 🙁
And then I'd have to move on, because it's so depressing. That's what I love and always remember about Pullman's writing. He just hits you hard with a great visual image and it stays with you.
I adore this quote–"…a few children disappeared in Norwich, and then Sheffield, and then Manchester."
NORWICH! NO! NOT NORWICH!
Because Norwich is the centre of Britain, everyone knows this.
Hells yeah it is!
You and your NORWICH PROPAGANDA.
Incidentally, totally loled at this, Norwich has the highest percentage of atheists in England. THERE'S A REASON HE PUT IT FIRST. Pullman predicted the future in his book.
Except WAIT Pullman comes from Norwich. So…there is subversive Norwich-an propaganda in this book? Don't think I don't see through you, Pullman, I totally do .
But throughout chapter three, we get a much bigger idea of who she is and…well, she’s kind of an asshole, isn’t she?
Yes! She's kind of a brat! I kind of dig that. One of my complaints about the movie was that they tried to make her more likable.
Yup, so far she's been described as; sullen, stubborn, Asriel himself calls her a liar. So she's not a super sweet little girl, and seems to have no problem making trouble for the adults in her life. But I like how Pullman doesn't try to make her everyone's favourite.
Yes! I love that she's a brat! Seriously, what kid do you know who isn't a brat in one way or another? She's so much more realistic than those perfect kids you see in books a lot.
I hated movie Lyra (no fault of the actress). I thought she was in some weird in between- not TOOOOOOOO likeable and nice, but not TOOOOOOOOOOOOO much of a brat the way she is in the books. I didn't really think she had a personality.
I dig it, too, especially because she's a brat in ways girls often aren't expected or allowed to be: rambunctious, adventurous, stubborn, and all about breaking the rules. And so far no one's admonished her to be more "ladylike". I'm excited about Pullman's anti-sexism so far!
Yes! Totally. Lyra's personality is a big draw to me.
She is a brat! But so are a lot of little kids, and it doesn't mean they don't have good qualities, or the capacity to grow up well. 🙂
IA. A contrary main character can seem more human in a way, especially when you're rooting for them even though you don't particularly like/trust them!
Absolutely. My favorite example of this is the main character in Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy (Which Mark totally needs to read).
The first two chapters were vaguely interesting, yes, but this chapter was the one I decided I REALLY REALLY LIKED the story. Between Lyra's getting drunk in the catacombs, her wars with the street urchins, and her theft of the Costas' boat, she's just so outrageously mischievous you can't help but like her.
And I absolutely love asshole characters, which may or may not say something about my character, but I find them way more realistic and fun to read about than sweet-as-pie protagonists. Lyra's bratty stubbornness just tickles me pink.
Lyra’s Jordan is one of my favourite chapters of this book and another chance for me to admire Phillip Pullman’s intricate world-building.
First off, Jordan College is in Oxford, possibly one of the greatest places in the world. The first time I visited was just after I’d finished Northern Lights and it was amazing how much the real thing matched the images in my head; you can easily picture a scruffy-looking Lyra trying to climb one of the colleges.
Also, BRYTAIN. So many questions just because of a Y. And again, just by doing that, Pullman adds to the sense that this world is similar to our own but still so, SO different. It’s tiny details like these that I really appreciate. Of course, things like “atomcraft works”, “anbarograph” and “EXPERIMENTAL THEOLOGY” help establish the strangeness of this world as well. Especially Experimental Theology. Even as a kid, I knew those words were not meant to be together. It still boggles my mind even now. So weird yet so fascinating.
And the world-building continues; the currency in Brytain is the gold dollar, the post comes in the Royal Mail Zeppelin (OF COURSE THERE’S A ZEPPELIN, zeppelins are like the first chapter of Alternate Worlds 101), the King resides in Whitehall Palace and there’s such a thing as chocolatl which somehow sounds even more delicious than our own chocolate!
We get a lot more insight on what goes on in Lyra’s head in this chapter; who, by the way, you’re right about, Mark – she’s totally a ‘likeable asshole’. Half-wild, half-civilised (I love how Pullman frequently refers to her as a barbarian), she roams around the streets of Oxford, a natural leader. She’s fiercely proud of Jordan, even though she doesn’t seem to fully fit into its world. I enjoyed reading about her exploits, the wars between the children, the exploration of the College with Roger. She seems very intent on proving herself, especially to Asriel and it’s very obvious that she tries to imitate him when she deals with her own minions. Her first experience with alcohol was amusing too; I’m pretty sure I did something similar when I was younger, although I wasn’t visited by ‘ghasts’ in the middle of the night because of it. She also proves herself to be a fiercely loyal friend; her indignation and fear at his possible disappearance made her all the more endearing.
Which brings me to Tony Makarios’ story, one of the most genuinely scary things I’ve ever read. Pullman outright tells you what’s about to happen to him but that doesn’t stop the dread growing as he describes how Tony was kidnapped. The Woman with the Golden Monkey reminded me of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which is one of the creepiest bedtime stories I’ve ever heard and my hatred (and fear!) for her was cemented when she deliberately threw away the letters the children addressed to their parents. How heartbreaking is it to think of Tony’s poor befuddled mother waiting for her son and blaming herself for him disappearing?
The ending of the chapter is what makes everything all the more terrifying. Why are you at Jordan, Mrs Coulter? Why is your daemon already giving me nightmares?
OMG WOW! Seriously I've read this book several times and I never noticed the Brytain! I actually read what you'd written and thought what!? Is that some American thing? But no, sure enough I just looked it up and I am clearly oblivious to such excellent details!
It's one of my favourite things Pullman's done, I don't even know why! It totally jumped out of the page when I first read it – I remember thinking 'this is a BIG mistake to have made it past the editor'…
My edition doesn't have that. It says "The College owned farms and estates all over England". Now I'm wondering how much else I may have missed in all my re-reads. 🙁
I don't remember reading "Brytain," and at first I thought I had just glossed over it, but now I'm wondering if my version says "England" as well. Do you have the American edition that's all three books? Am I going to crack mine open and pout about the lack of Brytain? Now I wonder if I'm missing out on other things, too.
My UK paperback copies of this are in storage so I've downloaded the US version in eBook format so I can read along. The US version says England but that looks to have been changed from the UK Brytain. You can do a search for Brytain in the UK edition here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Northern-Lights-His-Dark-…
Interestingly, Brytain is a reasonably common spelling, historically:
http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&am…
Which reminds me of something else that gets a first mention in this chapter (in relation to Tony Makarios's ancestry):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skraeling
Wonderfully evocative and puts me in mind of this song from Robert Calvert's Lucky Leif and the Longshps album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byuu2LEy4Vk
I think they must be the US versions, bc I live in Canada, and that's primarily what is available here.
There are at least two paragraphs in Amber Spyglass that are vastly different from UK to US versions. There's links on Cleolinda's (I think) lj about where exactly they are. Don't go looking for them if you haven't read the third book, because it is (obviously) spoilery.
I hadn't realized there were little different word changes in the other books too, which makes me sad, because changing 'Brytain' to 'England' is not making the book any better.
Someone posted about that change before Mark started, but now I'm wondering if there aren't smaller changes. I agree, changing it to England doesn't make sense with all of the other odd spellings we've seen in just three chapters. Boo.
I commented about it on his "Hello there Readers" post a week ago. I included the relevant links for people who don't need to worry about spoilers. If you want to go check it out, my comment is here;
(Spoiler alert, this link sends you to a comment with links to spoilers [no spoilers in the comment, so you're still like, two steps away from being spoiled, but still, we can't be too safe :D]) http://markreads.net/reviews/2011/05/hello-there-…
Thanks! I've read the books already, so no worry about spoilers here, haha. Apparently we're missing another passage in addition to the one I already knew about, and we somehow have an extra line. smh American publishers.
I'd never noticed that either, that's incredible
I never noticed it either! Wow.
The Pied Piper terrified me! My mom told me that story when I was maybe five and I had nightmares for a month. Granted, I also had nightmares about Peter Pan, so maybe I was just an overly sensitive child
The Pied Piper was one of the most terrifying things I've ever heard! I still can't understand why anyone would tell that story to kids. I'm pretty sure I have the storybook around here somewhere. *shivers*
Oh I disagree – I'm definitely going to tell it to my kids (should I have any – actually, maybe I shouldn't have any!) because the ABJECT TERROR derived from folktales and fairytales was a delicious part of my childhood!
The lying awake at night, too scared to close my eyes because of the Pied Piper or the dog with eyes the size of dinner plates or the hedgehog-man hybrid or the stepmother dancing forever in red hot iron shoes or the witch who scratches eyes out… OK, the fact that I remember the terror so fondly is really very disturbing…!
Back to therapy for me, then.
Haha, strangely enough I see your point-fairytale terror is defintely an inseperable part of my childhood!
I love all of the renamings and differences between our world and Lyra's, especially since I've forgotten all of the little details. I said "oh, it didn't burn down!" when I got to the bit about Whitehall Palace. I'm not familiar with the UK or Oxford (isn't Exeter Jordan's real-world analogue?), so the differences in topography don't stand out as much, but Lyra's world still seems uncanny to me. I also like how Pullman's spellings, like chocolatl, reveal the etymologies of our words. He's done some great worldbuilding.
Mine doesn't have Brytain!! DAMN YOU, AMERICAN PUBLISHERS!!! (no idea if it's actually their fault)
The last time I was in Oxford a friend and I got a bit drunk and went staggering around looking for HDM landmarks. It was so fun. Oxford is an amazing place.
Haha, totally doing the HDM tour next time I go to visit my friend in Oxford ^^
I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE "BRYTAIN." That's what I get for reading fast.
On second look it seems I have the American version and it just says "England." BORING!
“and there’s such a thing as chocolatl which somehow sounds even more delicious than our own chocolate!”
It’s “chocolate” via the Aztec (or Mayan? the Americas, in any case) rather than the French, isn’t it?
Right there, Pullman makes clear that even etymology is different in this world. Which implies so very many possibilities about the different currents in their history than in ours. I wish I had more knowledge directly to hand to make specific guesses about what it means that the word for the product of the cocoa bean came to English via different etymological channels than in ours.
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Wow, this really was an info-dump chapter wasn't it?
I don't remember the whole ghost story thing, but I do remember the parts describing Jordan College and Lyra playing with her friends in the street. I wanted so badly to be her and be living in such an awesome place and be free to run around and play and not have to go to school. And yeah, Mrs. Coulter scared the SHIT out of me with that little aside there.
YOU. ARE. NOT. PREPARED.
Oxford is TEH AWESOME. I'm studying in Oxford and I type this looking out of my window at the beautiful golden towers and spires that Pullman writes about. Also, Oxford colleges are exactly like this: archaic and surreal and full of insane officials and academics. (And convinced that they're better than everywhere else in the world.) I get excited every time I pick up one of these books and find places I know in them.
Yeah, Jordan College might be fictional, but it fits seemlessly into the rest of Oxford.
For reference Mark, the bit about Jordan owning land is also a real-life thing – most of the older colleges of Oxford University own farms, and land and have Mysterious Investments. It comes of them having been around, and politically powerful, for hundred of years. It's not so much a school that Lyra goes to, as a mini-university where she happens to live.
So NOT PREPARED Mark.
I think we can talk briefly about servants' daemons being dogs now. I'm pretty sure I'm not basing this on any more information than what we've been told so far (if I am, I don't remember what). The way I read the daemon thing is that as children you have the potential to be whatever you want but once you reach adulthood you settle on a role (or have one settled for you). So I tend to see the servant/dog thing as a metaphor for the way society shapes people rather than an assertion that people are born with a certain status that is reflected in the daemon. So, in as much as we can even discuss a fantasy set in a different kind of world as saying something about the reality of our world – I don't think that the text strongly supports the idea that class is a reflection of something inherent in people.
Still not a lot else to say, except I love the way the panorama suddenly opens out and also Lyra's brattish side is enjoyable.
Edit to add: Zeppelins!
<img src="http://i52.tinypic.com/2e15csn.jpg">
<img src="http://i54.tinypic.com/2ni3asp.jpg">
<img src="http://i52.tinypic.com/nbw7cx.jpg">
I love how basically the entire world secretly wishes we hadn't abandoned the whole zeppelin thing. 😀
I'm not at all secretive about it! Apparently they were MUCH nicer to travel in than planes. I'm still holding out for a zeppelin revival.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/…
So, who knows?
I grew up in Bedfordshire and just outside Bedford are the Cardington Airship Hangers, where they built the ill-fated R101. For all of my childhood there was talk of starting up airship production again – and it never happened, although you would see tethered balloons. Christopher Nolan uses the sheds to shoot a lot of his films.
They're quite striking:
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Cardington_Shed_BW.jpg">
You missed the Fringe zeppelins in there 🙂
FYI Mark, Jordan College isn't a school-it's a part of the wider University of Oxford.
School in the US refers to what we'd call a University of the College of a University.
So UK School = US High School.
Okay, thoroughly confused now. We generally have primary/infant/junior school up to age 11. Then secondary/comprehensive/grammar/high school until 18. Then university (or college in places like Oxford) as an adult. So how does that compare with USA?
In the US they'll go through a similar combination (Elementary, Middle, High School*) and, if they're academically inclined, go on to do a four-year degree at a university or college at 17 or 18 (because there's a high school diploma rather than GCSEs and A-Levels, the early part of a US college education overlaps somewhat with a British 6th form).
The thing is that US universities and colleges are regularly referred to as schools by the people who study and teach in them. So when Mark said "Lyra goes to one of the most prestigious and honored schools in all of Europe" he meant university, not high school. What we call a school, Americans would typically call a high school; and what we'd call a university or college, Americans would typically call a school.
Is that clear now?
*There's junior high sometimes as well, I don't know the exact details – being a UKer.
Yes, I understand now! Thank you! 😀
As far as I am aware, junior high may refer to middle school OR to a combination middle/high school institution.
And yeah, basically a school is any academic institution where there are people teaching and other people learning.
Haha, you've explained our idiosyncrasies pretty well. Every educational institution is referred to as a school; it's a generic term. Junior highs are an older form — there still are a few, I think — of middle schools, where the grades are 7-9, versus 6-8 for middle schools. There's also a difference in teaching methods in some places, I guess, but classes in my middle school were similar to high school. There are lots of arguments about the benefits of one versus the other.
My town apparently just did not want to fit in with the rest of the country. Our junior high/middle school was grades 7-8 and the sign on the building said "Junior High School" but the banner/sign thing on the lawn said "Middle School." I think (it's been a while). Why bother trying to make sense?
As I understand it: in the USA, a university is also referred to as a school. In the UK, a university is always called a university. Oxford, Cambridge and Durham are anomalies: they are universities, but they are made up of constituent colleges, where students live, eat, socialise, and have tutorials with academics. Academics are always affiliated to a particular college, where they have their offices, as well as to the university as a whole. Jordan College is just one of the colleges of the University of Oxford, so calling it a 'school' probably isn't accurate as an Americanism – your 'school' would still be Oxford, but your college would be Jordan.
Ah, the nuances of language! *sighs*
They say that Britain and America are two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean. And that's true.
Welll my university has separate colleges within it as well, but it wouldn't be extremely strange to refer to them as schools. Only in the context of comparing between (sub)colleges, though.
I know the University of Toronto (UofT) has a college system, because it started as a group of colleges that then combined to create one larger university. Each still has its own residences and traditions, however – much like the colleges at UK unis.
Also, Americans often call their universities "colleges", which is a little confusing. In Canada, a college either refers to the college-within-a-university, like at UofT or, more commonly, to a technical college.
I think, though I'm not sure, that being labeled a University vs. being named a College has something to do with the size of the school and the degrees one can get there. Typically, a "College" doesn't have a graduate program, but only offers Bachelor degrees. I may be wrong though!
You're right – if a school doesn't have a post-graduate program, it is called a college, but if it does it's called a university. (That is, post-four-year degree program. You can receive a Bachelor's degree from a college or a university, but Master's degrees and Ph.Ds are granted only by universities.)
And just to be super confusing, you can also have sixth form colleges (16-18). So, I would say that I went to school, then college, then uni. Geesh.
Yes, there's another difference. In the US, most students will get a general high school diploma before moving on to college. In the UK you do a number of separate GCSEs, usually at 16, and then decide whether or not to spend another two years in sixth form (either at your school or at a separate sixth form college) doing A-Levels. Entry to a university degree is then dependent on your A-Level results. The extra tier in the UK explains, I think, why a four-year US degree is roughly equivalent to a three-year UK one.
The usual distinction that is made is that further education is 16+ and higher education is 18+. So you can have further education colleges and higher education colleges. A sixth form college will usually focus on the academic A-level route, whereas an FE college will typically offer more vocational NVQs, BTECs and City and Guilds qualifications.
Does anyone's head hurt yet?
Mine does! :'D
Actually, the FE colleges sound cool. I don't even know if we have an equally institutionalized equivalent in the States, or in a state.
A college is an institution of further study, often small, often without the power to award its own degrees.
A University is accredited to award its own degrees. A collegiate university is a federation of colleges, that collectively have the power to award degrees. Most UK universities are not collegiate, but Oxford is.
Collegiate university colleges are completely different to other colleges. In the case of Oxford, you should remember that it is a system that has evolved since the 11th Century.
This might help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleges_of_the_Univ…
and also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleges_within_univ…
Trivia: the University of Dublin was originally intended to be a collegiate university too, so its first building was Trinity College. Then they got bored (or something) and decided they could only be bothered having one college. So Trinity College Dublin and the University of Dublin are the same institution.
Indeed. But distinct from University College Dublin and Dublin City University. I always had alot of fun with that (being a TCD grad).
Mine, too! And we did refer to the Engineering School as a school (obvs), but the others were colleges.
I think the confusion is that college and university can be used pretty much synonymously in the USA (sometimes University would denote larger, or more programs of study, with subdivisions within the university). If I understand correctly, a college that is part of a University like Oxford would be called a particular "school" within a college/university here. For instance, I attended the University of Connecticut. Within it were the School of Nursing, School of Engineering, School of Business, School of Fine Arts, Graduate School, School of Education, School of Medicine, School of Pharmacy…but of course there are exceptions to how this terminology works, since there was also the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Am I right in thinking that, for instance, Christ Church College is a "subdivision" or school within Oxford University, just as an example? That was the understanding I got when I visited.
I went to a huge state university, too, and there was a mix of Schools — Business, Engineering — and Colleges — Life Sciences (renamed a couple of times), Arts and Humanities. It gets a bit confusing. I don't know why or how the nomenclature got so screwy.
The University I went to named things based on how many majors were offered in each school/college. For example, the School of International Service only offered a BA/MA/PhD in International Studies, the School of Business only offered Business degrees, but the College of Arts and Sciences offered degrees in Math, History, English, Chemistry, etc. And put all the schools/colleges together and we had a university.
No. Schools are subject dependent. For instance, I studied for my degree in the School of English, part of the Faculty if Arts, at the University of Leeds. That's a big unified University, though, not a collegiate one. That type of University often awards degrees on behalf of smaller institutions. For example Bretton Hall (where Mark Gatiss of Doctor Who went) was a college of the University of Leeds. Put simply, colleges are small and universities are big. Most universities are single institutions, sometimes with largely autonomous satellite colleges that they award degrees for. Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and London, though, are federations of colleges – lots of independent organisations that together form a university.
Just to confuse things even further, here are some colleges of London University:
London School of Economics
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
School of Oriental and African Studies
So, colleges do sometimes call themselves schools. However, students at them would still say they were studying at university or at college.
You are kind of right. Taking your example, Christ Church college is a subdivision of Oxford University, but unlike the "schools" within, for example, University of Connecticut, which are divided by subject, our colleges are more communal divisons. So you tend to live with other students of your college, but your classes will be with students from all the colleges. This system applies to Oxford, Cambridge and Durham.
The University of London is a completely different system. The Colleges and Schools are completely separate institutions, but all students graduate with a degree from The University of London.
Oh, Mrs. Coulter. I have to admire Pullman for creating such a character, even though she is scary as hell.
I love this book so much. 😀
When I reread this last night I was more conscious both of how long the chapter is and how much information we get. It's nice though, as we get much more of a chance to explore the world of Jordan College and get a feel for what Lyra's life is like. It's much easier to see how she could be described as "half-wild, half-civilized" if she spends most of her time running around rooftops and crypts and is occasionally caught and cleaned up enough for a few minutes of lessons. I loved these descriptions as a kid, probably because if I lived in that place I'd do exactly the same. I always had fantasies of running around in the woods and having grand adventures. Mostly I stayed indoors and read books instead, though.
I also really enjoy the picture we get of Lyra's education. I like that she picks up bits and pieces of these highly advanced, theoretical ideas from the Scholars, but still has a firm and irrational belief in the idea of a ship having a plug. And I really loved the idea when she imagines that the stars have daemons and the experimental theologists spoke to them– it was such a poetic description, even as Lyra herself describes it as likely wrong.
I think we get a good setup here of Lyra's character and maybe some symbolic stuff as well: she's very much a child of two worlds, and not quite sure which direction she wants to go. Although we don't know her age, she seems to also be right at that point between childhood and adulthood. Just enough to be barely aware of the changes that'll start happening, and a little scared of them. Although Lyra would probably be insulted to be thought scared of anything. 😉
I think boats do have bungs though, don't they? Or maybe only really small boats do… I once fell foul of one: couldn't work out why the rowing boat was sinking!
I forgot how long this chapter is. But I really like it. This sort of world-building is, to me, preferable to the gigantic info-dump of the previous two chapters. I actually remember the book starting with this chapter and still kind of view the first two chapters as an extended prologue. This is when I start to care about the characters and understand their world.
I like all the class warfare between the kids, with each siding with their own college, colleges against townies, and then all of them against the brickburners and gyptians. I think the mutable alliances are fascinating.
The story of Tony Markarios is simply tragic. His mom can't even remember how old he his or who his father might have been.
I like Lyra and Robert getting drunk and Lyra insisting that she likes it.
I fell in love with Pantalaimon the minute he became a dragon. I want a dragon.
Finally, Ma Costa kind of reminds me of Rosa Huberman.
I'm getting so excited! And, since it must be said, you're not prepared in the least. I can't wait for some of the theological discussions to start happening.
Can you explain how you define 'info-dump'? Because I've never heard it used the way you're using it. To me, an info dump is a long section of text where the author sits down and explains what the name of everything is and what the names mean, gives us some information about the world– basically, this chapter, where we get direct statements like "as people get older their daemons settle into one shape permanently." It's exposition.
The first two chapters didn't explain anything– we got a lot of side mentions of people, places, and events that may become important later, but the author did not look at us directly and explain things. This latter technique is usually regarded as a pretty solid way of world-building and even foreshadowing without being too obvious about it. I can see why it might be frustrating, but I've never heard the technique called info-dumping.
I think I qualify both as info-dumps because you get a ton of information about this world. In the first chapter, that information comes without context, so it's incredibly confusing. In the third chapter, you get just as much information (well maybe not as much), but you also get context and explanations for that information, so it makes sense.
Both provide a ton of information, but one is easier to process (and more to my liking)
Mm. I see your reasoning, but I think I would still class them as somewhat different techniques. At least, most writing advice I've read counsels writers to avoid info-dumps by slipping the information in piecemeal with carefully dropped hints, much as we saw in Chapter 2. It seems to me there should be a separate word for that technique, but I can't think of any, unfortunately.
They're definitely different techniques. I can't think of a better word for it, either, hence my use of info-dump. Sorry about the confusion.
Ha,ha,ha, I wish that there was a term for it too! It's like you weave info in without the reader even knowing it's being done. "Good storytelling" is about the closest I could come to a name for it. "Info-weave?" Maybe? I dunno.
Now, what we had at the beginning of this chapter WAS an info-dump. And an info-dump is pretty much a lecture; the person just goes on and on about some subject without furthering the plot. Now, I realize that's what I'm doing now––but hey! You asked for it, right? You said, "Can you explain info-dumps?" Well, you asked Cait, anyway. I don't like info-dumps, myself. I mean, when I got to chapter three I don't recall saying, "Hey, you know, this expedition to the mysterious north sounds nice, but what I'd REALLY like to know about is the layout of the school and the surrounding area. Also, toss in some facts about Lyra's earlier life; what's going on in the present isn't nearly fascinating enough." 😛
Oh, I know this chapter was an info-dump. What I asked Cait was to clarify their use of the term, because they were applying it to both Chapter 2 and 3, which didn't seem to fit for me. My question was more in the lines of "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Every book needs some measure of exposition, and the info-dumps can be handled well; I think this chapter does a good job of giving us information without being tedious about it. Probably the absolutely worst info-dump I ever saw was the beginning of the first Drizzt book. Not only was it endless names and explanation for everything, but all the names were terrible fantasy cliches with multiple apostrophes and no vowels like sk'zkl't. D< It was the worst kind of terrible and I gave up five pages in.
Oh! I gave up on those books too! Now, I love punctuation, but that guy doesn't even wait until the word is DONE before putting it in! It's so nice to hear that other people stop reading stories after the first few pages; sometimes you don't need much more than that, you really don't.
For me, an info dump is when someone specifically says 'here is where we are, these are the people, these are their stories' in one go, without working it into any action.
Anyone read the Babysitter's Club books when they were little? EVERY SINGLE ONE started with a chapter that literally went: "I am Stacey, I live in Stoneybrook, I am part of the Babysitter's Club, I look like this…' followed by a description (age, personality, looks) of EVERY character. Nightmare info dumping.
Yes! I loved those books. But the second chapter of every single one was nearly identical except for which character was the POV character for the book. Makes it easier for the ghost-writers, I suppose.
It was the second chapter, not the first! The first would have some kind of action, and then the second would be the infodump chapter that you could always skip because it was the same EVERY TIME.
I like all the class warfare between the kids, with each siding with their own college, colleges against townies, and then all of them against the brickburners and gyptians. I think the mutable alliances are fascinating.
I love how it's true to the adult world, too. We form alliances with people closer to us, even if we don't usually associate with them due to differences in class and ideology, against the Other. It's pretty revealing of how arbitrary hatred can be.
Yeah. And I also see it as being similar to school pride/town pride -> state pride -> national pride. Your alliances depend on the level you're fighting at.
Of course! My county is obviously the best in the state, which is far superior to it's neighbors in the Mid-Atlantic, the best region of the US, the greatest country on god's green Earth!
I love that Lyra's pride has nothing to do with her contributions to or understanding of the school's work, just her affiliation with it. It's so true to life.
I feel like the Kind But Terrifying Matriarch is a trope.
Good point, I'm sure it's popped up elsewhere and this isn't much of a coincidence
Notes taken before I read the review:
What are atomcraft works? This literally translates to Atomkraftwerke in german, and this would be nuclear power plants, but I can’t quite believe it. Late nineteenth century?
They eat swans? Oh yes, and rooks.
Science, religion and magic are not separated in this world (although Lyra is still young, this doesn’t seem to be only in her mind). So I would have a degree in experimental theology (lol), and maybe I would be called a magician (if I had not been burned on the stake)?
Why was Tony Makarios lost when his daemon touched the golden monkey?
One Question answered: Daemons loose their shape shifting ability when the humans grow up.
Also, Daemons can become drunk. Did they also drink the wine, or did this happen by a mental connection? Do we ever see daemons eat or drink? Some commenter (sorry, I don’t remember your name) noticed that Lyra speaks to Pantalaimon, but we never see or hear others speak to their daemon. Maybe they don’t really “speak”?
There are Zeppelins. I love airships.
Uranium mines for atomcraft. Okay, I got it now. Germans built the first Atomkraftwerk, and this word was adopted into other languages. I hope we didn’t also build the bomb. Alternate explanation: Since the church was reformed in some way, german may have replaced latin as the common language of theology. But Martin Luther was not mentioned, and I’m not sure if Johannes (John? Jean?) Calvin spoke german. Genava is in the french speaking part of Switzerland, at least in our world.
Did Lyra just meet the Gobbler Lady?
The english preview doesn’t let me see more, so I have to continue to read in german now, and my future comments will be full of errors (like I would have retranslated the translation of “scholars” to “scientists” or “atomcraft works” to “nuclear power plants”).
Back in the day, people studied natural philosophy instead of physics and alchemy instead of chemistry. Both of the these modern sciences have roots in more religious/magical disciplines. I think the "experimental theology" is a reflection of how much control the church still has in this society, but is essentially what we would call physics (Lyra alludes to astronomy and we know that the Dust has at least one property in common with light, since they were able to represent it in photographic form)
That's what I thought. In our world my degree is in physics.
me too! high five!
Very interesting stuff. You may even have an advantage with a translation like the whole RAB thing in HP!
Also airships are so cool!
What was the RAB thing?
In some foreign languages editions of the Harry Potter books, the Black family's surname got changed to reflect the language (the Dutch one had the last name Zwarts, if I remember correctly), and the last initial of the R.A.B. clue would change to reflect that, which is one way a lot of the people identified Regulus as the one who stole the Horcrux.
But Lyra did hear Lord Asriel's daemon speak to him. Maybe they do speak, but only direct it to their person?
Lord Asriel's daemon also laughed at Lyra in this chapter, which if you imagine what it would look like seems really, really creepy.
You're totally right! I now have an abject fear of laughing snow-leopards!
I'm still unsure exactly what year this is meant to take place in, since obviously its pretty divergent from our own world. The only date we have to go on so far is that the Tokay that Asriel spilled was from 1897, so it must be at least a few years after that, depending on how long a good Tokay is meant to age before drinking.
ETA: I looked up Tokay (now more commonly spelled Tokaji) to find out how long it's meant to age. Apparently at least two years in an oak cask, and at least one year in a bottle before it can be sold, so the earliest year this can take place is 1900. However, the Master mentions that the college "only" has twelve cases left, implying that they've had a large supply for some time. Tokay apparently remains drinkable in a well-sealed bottle for up to 200 years, so it's entirely possible that this version of Oxford is meant to exist contemporary with our own time.
I love the way that Pullman describes the 'wars' that the children wage. Because when you're that age, that stuff really does seem like the most important thing in the world. I'd bet most people have memories of playing with friends or siblings, and whatever game it was leaving the realm of the imagined and becoming as real as anything else in life.
I love the line about how adults would be like "aw, children playing, how innocent and sweet" when in fact they were waging WAR which is SRS BSNS. As I recall Terry Pratchett has a similar line–"real children don't go hoppity-skip unless they are on drugs."
As far as I can recall, I had to be TAUGHT how to skip. And then I did that instead of running, because I've never learned how to run properly (apparently there's a technique, and there've been studies done on athletic kids versus non-athletic. Athletic kids aren't actually necessarily starting out more physical than others, they're just better at learn-by-sight for movement. As only athletic kids go on to become PE teachers, the cycle continues. Non-athletics kids, through never being taught and thus always having difficulty, tend to have sports/activity trained out of us completely).
We had literal wars when I was… eight or nine. Boys vs. girls. Evidently my nonbinariness was present from a young age, because I refused to pick sides and ran spy missions for both sides instead 😛
Hahaha, it was boys vs. girls at my elementary school too! There was this little hole around a corner that was the prison, and the boys always controlled it, and I was claustrophobic and hated it in there, so I always deserted the girls and joined the boy's team! If I'd been just a little more wiley, I could have been a spy for both like you-ingenious!
"OH YOU ARE SHITTING ME. What the hell is she doing there????"
Bet you just can't wait for the next chapter.
I don't think that Lyra is actually a student at the college, but someone who just stays there just because she lives there. (Probably doesn't make sense…)
No, it does. The College is a part of Oxford, and there are basically a bunch of grad students and profs assing around doing studies or philosophizing about… experimental theology? Also, a kid lives there are bugs the servants. The head of the College seems to be hinting that the kid has been put there for a reason, because they clearly want her to be paying attention…
But she's not actually a student at the college because she's, well, a kid.
Well, now we’re getting to the real shit, aren’t we?
OH MARK.
He has no idea.
He really doesn't. ^_^
Forever unprepared
He thinks he knows things about this series now.
…
Hahahahahha!
Oh man, that's so cute.
I'm still giddy that you are reading these books. As much as I love them, I know not everybody does. However, it still leads to some FANTASTIC conversations. And I adore talking about books, so that can only be a good thing.
Speaking of talking, you're not teasing me by mentioning the religious controversy of this series, as well as other plot points, you are positively taunting me. I like discussing religion, and its history, way too much to be patient.
Chocolatl is chocolate liquor? I read this when I was 13 and wasn't all that interested in liquor, so I just assumed it was Lyra's world's name for hot chocolate and have held on to that idea since. I may not have cared about experimenting with alcohol at that point, but I definitely loved hot chocolate. I do think it being chocolate liquor would have been of some interest though.
I understood Chocolatl to be hot chocolate too, it is described as a "sweet, hot liquor", but I didn't think it was in any way alcoholic. Does liquor have to be alcohol?
No, chocolate liquor usually just refers to the liquid form of chocolate. I agree that it's probably hot chocolate, because I'm pretty the drink was just referred to as chocolate in older speech. I love chocolate, if it isn't obvious!
I would go with this explanation, as well. A lot of tea places have really nebulous descriptions of their teas' "liquor," so I really didn't think anything of the same word being used to describe a chocolate drink.
I like how, in a post that has threads on education systems and the origins of the term "gypsy" and the oppression it creates (both very interesting, but more serious, topics), we are talking about chocolate, which is both magical and delicious.
I never knew liquor could refer to just something liquid. It's always associated with alcohol in my mind. That's really interesting.
Hehe, like I said, I love chocolate. I think it's called liquor because the cocoa beans are fermented. Anyway, Vikinhaw said everything about gyptians, Gypsies, and Travellers better than I ever could. I've gotta say that I love how Pullman's created or archaic words reflect their etymology, especially when it sparks discussions like the one below.
Quick note first Mark – "He wonders if Asriel is lonely, based on the company she keeps"
I think you mean Lyra?
Man it's been a few years since I read this book and I do forget how long this chapter is though! I absolutely adore it though – I know a lot of people who gave up here because they hated the backstory and worldbuilding and wanted to get on to actual plot and stuff, to which I can only say 'bwuh?!' Because I LOVE it. I love hearing about Lyra's life and the things she gets up to and the people she meets and her adventures, all the while discovering a little bit more about what daemons are and how the wider world she lives in works.
It was probably a lot easier for me to understand though, coming from England and visiting Oxford quite a lot in my life! But basically if you didn't get it before – the University of Oxford is like any university (or college?) in the US, like Harvard or Yale or whatever, and it's made up of loads of different colleges, of which each student belongs to one. So you say you're at Jordan College (which Pullman made up for the book but could very well be a real college, apart from being in a slightly different version of Oxford it's basically the same as any college) but when you graduate you graduate from Oxford University, not from Jordan College. Subtle distinction, but important for anyone who goes there! 😛
ALSO OMG GOBBLERS AND MRS COULTER AND OH GOD THE FEAR. Although I read the book first when I was nine, a few years later I got the audiobooks which are narrated by Pullman (who has the most amazing voice) and a sensational cast. The woman who voices Mrs Coulter? Her voice is gorgeous and soft and seductive and so. freaking. scary. She's completely perfect, totally the kind of woman you can imagine tricking small children into coming with her because she's so beautiful and lovely and then totally turning on them and BURNING THEIR LETTERS HOME OMG YOU BITCH.
Watch out Lyra, watch out. :/
Haha! I'm fairly sure I have those audiobooks and the Mrs Coulter in them is in The Archers!
Yes, that's her! Didn't expect that Mark would get that reference though 😉 I only ever listen to The Archers when I'm in the car with my parents nowadays so I don't remember who she is but I do remember the first time I heard her voice on the The Archers after listening to my audiobooks I was all 'Oh my GOSH that's Mrs Coulter!' She has a gorgeous voice, I'm so jealous of it.
I guess Lyra is pretty asshole-ish in this chapter but I actually found myself liking her. She reminds me of alot of the more difficult children that I've known but liked.
I love builds up this world with the worlds he uses. It's obviously meant to be a world like ours but slightly different. The language nerd in me is loving the other possible words for things that have the same etymology as words in our world. There's atomcraft, anbarograph, chocolatl…
The word gyptian for example is obviously the equivalent of the word 'gypsy' in our world. The word 'gypsy' comes 'gypcian' meaning Egyptian because people mistakenly believed that the Roma were from Egypt so this world went down an different path in the development of that word.
Sorry in advance for going off topic but I have to say this:
The word 'gypsy' is considered by many to be a slur.
In real life it usually refers to two separate people;
Roma – ethnic group mostly in mainland Europe. Distinct culture, language. Analysis of their language shows that it originally came from India.
Irish Travellors – ethic group from Ireland. Distinct culture, language and has no connection, as far as can be shown, to Romani.
Both groups face huge amounts of discrimination and I can tell you from experience that discrimination against Irish Travellors is socially acceptable. Going from what's in this chapter the gyptians seems to be based more on Irish Travellors (Ma Costa). The reason I'm including all of this is because Pullman is from society where Roma and Travellors are marginalized and the gyptians are clear expsy of these real life peoples so the portrayal of them should be scrutinized.
I don't think that's off-topic at all.
Is "Ma" an Irish Traveler thing?
Well you could say the discrimination of gypsies is shown by the way all the children instinctively gang up and fight the gyptians whenever they get a chance.
But having said that, they were all perfectly prepared to help look for Billy…
It's pretty true to life that the children would gang up on them but I was thinking more of how the book might show the author's implicit thoughts on them. I can't really say more cause of spoilers.
I think that's more a commentary on children in general than the townies/collegers/gyptians rivalries shown. Kids will generally organize themselves into social groups and then gang up against others. I remember having epic battles on my street, teams were generally divided depending if you lived on the top of the crescent or down the sides. The kids are ganging up on outsiders, but the way they wage war, mudfights, kidnapping, choice of weapons, seems fairly innocent. More violent than my own childhood, but ultimately it seems to me to be fairly innocent.
That's not to say that the comment someone makes implying the gyptians steal horses is cool, but I think the children aren't necessarily picking sides based on race or class, but just on their local environments
I'm so glad you wrote about this! I live in Scotland and have done a bit of research into Scottish Travellers, and it gets even more complicated – some Scottish Travellers see themselves as entirely distinct from Irish Travellers, others as connected with them, others as connected ethnically with Romany communities in England – who themselves tend to claim distinction from Roma and often use 'gypsy' for themselves. In Scotland, the work 'tinker' was used rather than 'gypsy' (although you still get people talking about 'fucking gypos' – and then we argue because seriously wtf), and for many that's considered to be a slur – but for others, it's descriptive because traditionally many of them made money through metalwork. The potential to offend is massive, but the various cultures and communities under the umbrella (usually pejorative) term 'gypsy' are fascinating.
Plus I want to join you on a whole SOCIAL JUSTICE and ACCEPTED FORM OF RACISM and WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE rant about British society, but I'll refrain! 😉
Horray! It's so nice to find like minded people. I'm trying to refrain from ranting but I can't help it…
It's absurd just how socially acceptable it is here. We have Travellers in our family on my mother's side and it's possible I'm descended from Travellers my father's (it's not like they'd ever admit it). My aunt had a child with a Traveller when she was a teenager and my grandfather took the child off her and put it up for adoption. At the same time my other aunt had a child and was allowed to keep it because that child wasn't a Traveller. All of this and yet it's perfectly ok for my family to rant about how they 'fucking hate those tinkers/knackers/gypsies'. There have been many arguments with my family.
I had no idea that there were Scottish Travellers at all. It's pretty complicated here too (in Ireland). Some Irish Travellers use gypsy as a descriptor and some Roma do too. Though most Irish Travellers I've known dislike the word because it puts them in same group as Roma and they see themselves as distinct from them so it offends.
I don't know why people are so anti-gypsy. But there are ideas that oh gypsies steal, cause crime, leave mess behind them, don't pay taxes etc. And while this may be true in some instances it becomes a stereotype and they all get tarred with the same brush.
I have an interview I recorded with a farmer (which I unfortunately don't have permission to publish or archive) in which he says that he used to love it when the Travellers came round to his community when he was a kid, because he and his mates could go and steal stuff and no one would ever suspect them – the police would go straight to the campsite.
And then you get the whole cycles of crime and disenfranchisement – if you're treated like scum of the earth and suspected of wrongdoing before you've even parked your caravan, and local councils can shut down traditionally used campsites or ring fence them and make it perfectly clear that you're not welcome there, then it's not at all surprising that you might not feel all that connected to society!
I have anger with the world!!
Totally agreed! Have you read any Stanley Cohen? We studied part of "Folk Devils" this term (I'm in the first year of a Sociology degree) and it was really interesting. Oh and we all had to bring in a newspaper clipping or printout of a modern folk devil for a seminar, and you would be depressed at the number of people who before our teacher arrived said "X group is a folk devil! Oh but it's actually true though, isn't it? <goes through long list of stereotypes>" -.-
No I haven't read Stanley Cohen – but, following a brief Google search, I am horrified that I haven't! I think I feel an Amazon spree coming on… 🙂
Folk Devils And Moral Panics was probably the single most accessible reading on the entire year's list for that module. I really enjoyed it. ^_^
Also in our student-run revision session the other day we were running out of time so to cover the topic of folk devils and moral panics someone just said "Read the Daily Mail" and that pretty much covered it 😛
Teehee, too right! One day I'm going to hold a Daily Mail fancy-dress party, and everyone has to come dressed as something the Daily Mail fears. So a load of lesbi-feminazis trying to force straight people to turn gay, ethnic minorities causing cancer and terrorists raising council tax rates. I plan on being Political Correctness Gone Mad… 😀
That would be the best party ever.
Oh god, I am angry now! I am in a rage!
That story is so sad, and I wish it weren't so typical. There's a wonderful woman, Jess Smith, who wrote about being brought up a Scottish Traveller, and she's been completely ostracised by her sisters because they've settled now and don't want anyone to know that they're Travellers. It's so sad.
Did you get My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding in Ireland? I was horrified when that came out – suddenly everyone was an "expert" on just how fucked up and awful 'gypsy' society is. And then use the negative examples shown (and yes, there are problems in the community – as there are in every single community in the world for the love of all things holy! THERE ARE UPPER-MIDDLE-CLASS ALCOHOLICS AND THIEVES AND ABUSERS REMEMBER?! – but also this was a "reality TV" show which said at the start that certain situations had been set up for entertainment purposes!) as PROOF that these people should be made to behave like 'normal people'. I… just… can't…. SPLUTTER.
That's really interesting. In South East England where I live, 'gypsy' or 'traveller' are used interchangeably by most people, including all the travellers I know. I had no idea that gypsy was pejorative, thanks for the heads up.
I think part of the reason for that round here is that the two main traveller communities in our area are pretty much settled. People tend to stay here most of their lives, so I suppose 'traveller' isn't a word they identify with? I'll have to ask my mate as I don't want to start mansplaining it on their behalf.
I get so frustrated with the blatant prejudice against travellers. It's difficult because there's a lot of gangs and stuff that do (obviously, not all of them and not representative of the whole community) cause trouble. People are so quick to jump in and complain about 'pikeys' when what they mean is 'those particular people who are troublemakers and happen to be travellers'. It's like the one form of bigotry that's still acceptable.
I know, right?! "I'm justified in my hatred of Travellers because one of them once stole my bike and slashed my Dad's tires!" Um, no, that simply justifies your hatred of dickheads. Some Travellers are horrible, nasty pieces of work because some people are horrible, nasty pieces of work! ICAN'TEVEN.
So much This. I can't count the number of times I've heard justifications like that for discrimination against Travellers and I'm just thinking no, that's just a horrible person, not a representative for a whole group of people.
Yeah, it's scary how often you can be talking to someone who seems nice and liberal and unprejudiced… and then someone mentions Travellers and it all goes downhill.
Romani should be used for the general, actually, rather than Roma. I didn't used to know this, but a Romani friend told me that Roma are a specific ethnic group WITHIN the Romani (other groups are, for example, Sinti and Kale), so it's bad to use the word Roma to refer to all the ethnic groups therein.
Ah sorry. Thanks for clarifying. I thought it was the other way around. I only really know about Irish Travellers.
Can you explain the different between Romani and Romany? I've come across them used as different categories and in different contexts (Romany being particularly English gypsy… I think…?) and have never quite got it!
Here I am replying to my own comment. Whoo!
For any Non-Irish/British who know very little about Travellers or anyone wants to know more; here's site which has input from actual Travellers so it would be better at explaining their situation than I ever could. http://paveepoint.ie/who-are-the-travellers-schoo…
/public service announcement
I came across a section about Pullman's depiction of the gyptians in a book called "The Tinkers in Irish Literature: Unsettled Subjects and the Construction of Difference", which I was reading in connection with a totally different work but I was interested to see Pullman in there. As far as I remember, the author awarded him some positive and some negative points in terms of his depiction, and that's quite vague so I hope that's alright (as I was saying, I was reading in connection to something else so I only skimmed that section…). Anyway, you might find it interesting/in line with your own analysis. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tinkers-Irish-Literature-…
This is probably going to be WAAAAY too long a post, but this chapter was AWESOME and now my brain hurts with too much information and questions.
This world is gorgeous – it's beautifully incongruous. In one moment it's really old fashioned (Jordan seems like a much more medieval style of university with its servants and developed infrastructure; they refer to Quarter Day rents, which is so oldskool!) and then suddenly we're talking office blocks in Manchester! One of the things I'm finding fascinating about Brytain is that it's weirdly familiar to me. I was brought up really close to Oxford, and some of the local names/geography are real and then the rest totally different… it's just bizarre! So I don't know whether my interpretations of things are coloured by what I know in-the-real-world.
So, some things:
I don't get the impression that Lyra is actually at Jordan College, not in the conventional way anyway. If Brytain's Oxford is anything like Britain's Oxford, then it's for scholars much much older than her – so I got the impression that she's sort of of it but not at it, if that makes sense. There's no reference to other children who actually study there, only servants' kids, so I assumed the Scholars and Under-Scholars (is that right?) were still much older than she is. And that for some reason she's been brought up there, and gets some education from the Scholars, but isn't actually enrolled. Yes? No? Am I completely wrong?
The daemon thing just gets more and more fascinating. I'm stabbing in the dark here, but I'm getting the impression that they're some sort of …projection of the person's inner world. (Why hello there cod-psychology.) Sometimes a voice of conscience, sometimes an alternative thought pattern (like when Pan was being cowardly and Lyra brave – could he be the little niggley scared bit in the back of her mind?), sometimes an enactment of their nature and behaviour. So Mrs Coulter's monkey enticing the sparrow into its hand (SERIOUSLY THE CREEPIEST THING EVER) is simultaneous/connected to her enticement of the little boy. Pan goading Mrs Lonsdale's dog mirrors Lyra's resistance to her ministrations. The shopkeeper's daemon tries to catch Tony's sparrow when the shopkeeper notices Tony's theft, and they both run at the same time. Also, the line about Tony turning because 'he couldn't help it' when the monkey takes the sparrow away from him – why couldn't he help it? Could he feel it drawing away from him? What if the shopkeeper's cat had caught his sparrow – would he still have been able to run away? SO MANY QUESTIONS!
I'm so glad you mentioned class, because I kept flagging that up too. It's all about social hierarchy, innit? Fascinating. DEVELOP THIS MORE PLEASE PHILIP PULLMAN.
Finally, something occurred to me when I was reading about the Gobblers becoming a legend. There's a whole genre of stories in the Scottish Traveller community (and possibly other Traveller/Romany/Roma/Gypsy communities; I don't know) called burker tales, about 'burkers' coming in the night to steal Travellers – and especially Traveller children. They vary from sort of urban-legend style stories that could be true to wildly supernatural tales. The name is thought to come from Burke as in Burke and Hare, one of the famous Edinburgh bodysnatchers who provided corpses for medical experiments and were eventually hanged for murdering prostitutes and other lower class people in order to keep supplying the medical school. It's certainly not inconceivable that Travelling communities would have been vulnerable to this sort of crime. The Gobblers targeting the most vulnerable people in society, the role of the Gyptians in this chapter, and the way that a whole corpus of stories is springing up around these disappearances, really resonated with the burker tales I've heard.
That's really interesting, about the burker tales.
I'm reading for the first time along with Mark and I have never seen the movie.
Am I basically right in picturing Lyra's England as Steampunk England?
The movie definitely used a lot of steampunk for its visual flavor, although the book was written in 1996, before steampunk really emerged as a genre. So… sort of?
I haven't seen the movie either, and am reading now for the first time as well. For some reason I also had images of the Steampunk type while reading this. Also, GIVE ME A GODDAMN YEAR REFERENCE!!! Geez. I can't stand not knowing what the freaking setting is. I find it REALLY difficult to imagine the story without this point of reference. Is this supposed to be futuristic? In the past? Present? Jesus… it's really bothering me. If you couldn't tell!! 😉
I think because it's a whole other world, a year reference might just confuse people by comparing to our own world's timeline. There are clues though like the dead Masters were around in the 1700s.
Exactly — it's its own setting, adding a year might just make it harder for the reader to accept the differences. Steampunky-alternate world stuff like this tends, in my small sample of reading it, to be more believable if your head isn't constantly trying to combine "real" 1894 or whatever with the book's 1894 or whatever. Instead, Pullman just leaves the year off so we are forced to accept the world of the book as its own thing.
In terms of scientific development, Atomcraft suggests post-1945. However the way technologies and even words have developed makes a year pretty meaningless. It's not our history we're talking about.
Lyra posits a horrifying theory: the children being kidnapped are SAWED IN HALF and being USED AS SLAVES.
Can Lyra just be wrong about this? THANKS, THAT IS TOO HORRIFYING A THOUGHT TO THINK OF.
*grins, sympathetically* Oh hon. You are so not prepared.
You know what's kind of insult-to-injury?
Makarios means "blessed".
🙁
HOLY SHIT. 🙁
Oh jeez, that's so sad! I'm glad to know this though, thanks.
Oh GOD.
Anyone else mention that this scary unsavory character was named Mrs Coulter?
Around this time I was wondering why this book was so controversial. What about it pissed religious people off? Perhaps it was that this woman was called Mrs Coulter.
As a theology student, I am confused – what is offensive about Mrs Coulter? It's just a semi-common Scottish surname as far as I'm aware, but perhaps I have missed a whole other level of interpretation in which case please educate me because I like learning new interpretations about new books!
It's kind of a joke. Like the question of is this Trelawney related to the Harry Potter Trelawney?
I don't understand – please educate me!!
Is she related to Ann Coulter?
spill.com's review of the movie suggested the same thing so I know I'm not the only one that thought of it.
Ah okay, I didn't know who Ann Coulter was so I think that is why I missed it! American references tend to go zooming over my head at a million miles an hour! 😛 Good joke though!
It has nothing to do with her name, really. Trust me.
Joke? Ha ha?
Joke like "Oh those religious people, clearly their dislike of this book must have been something silly and unimportant like the coincidence of a character's surname."
Savvy?
This book was published in 1996. Ann Coulter's first book was published in 1998. She wasn't too prominent on the conservative scene when Pullman was writing this.
It's more of an Irish thing. 'Ma' is the Irish version of Mom/Mum though it varies depending on dialect.
Does anyone know why any boat would need a bung? o_O
An inflatable boat?
To drain them, I think?
OR TO SINK THEM WITH EVERYONE ABOARD MUAHAHAHAHA.
Ahem.
Yes, that makes sense! I didn't think that a house boat with a bung would be very precarious! I think my (wet) adventure was actually a rubber dinghy not a rowing boat now I think about it – all I remember clearly is the mounting panic, even though we were only in a metre or so of water!
Ah, that makes sense. You said 'rowboat' and I was like 'what kind of rowboat has a bung?" I was also confused because I don't really think of the inflatable tab as a "bung."
When I was pretty young– nine or ten– we went on a trip down south and went on this river trip. I got to take a kayak by myself, and my parents and brother were all in a canoe. The stretch of river was about six miles long. Towards the end there were some small rapids. My little kayak skipped right over them, but apparently the canoe got wedged in between two rocks and started filling with water. I actually reached the end of the track and the guide took the kayak back upriver to fetch them. Fortunately they recovered everything except one shoe and some sunglasses (even the camera was okay, despite being drenched) but after that, my brother was notably reluctant to go canoeing. XD
Ah, that makes sense. You said 'rowboat' and I was like 'what kind of rowboat has a bung?" I was also confused because I don't really think of the inflatable tab as a "bung."
(childhood story time)
When I was pretty young– nine or ten– we went on a trip down south and went on this river trip. I got to take a kayak by myself, and my parents and brother were all in a canoe. The stretch of river was about six miles long. Towards the end there were some small rapids. My little kayak skipped right over them, but apparently the canoe got wedged in between two rocks and started filling with water. I actually reached the end of the track and the guide took the kayak back upriver to fetch them. Fortunately they recovered everything except one shoe and some sunglasses (even the camera was okay, despite being drenched) but after that, my brother was notably reluctant to go canoeing. XD
The part about the Gobblers/Mrs. Coulter was really eerie and unsettling. As Mark pointed out one of the Scholars had mentioned that the Dust child was an entire child, so perhaps they need to sacrifice children to mend the severed child? That's a horrifying thought and I'm most probably wrong.
Anyway what time period is the story set in? The setting seems quite industrial but at times its like an old fairytale.
Oooh, what a chilling thought.
Haha, I was mostly just lucky: I was essentially so light that the water carried me over the rocks rather than through.
I do love kayaking, though. 😀
Hm, good point. I never read it that way– I think if she had a nightmare, Pullman would have just said "nightmare," though. I think I've heard of "ghasts" as a type of monster in other stories, so I guess what I imagined was perhaps some kind of spectral creature that creates fear and nightmares? So the form of Lyra's nightmare was created from guilt or worry over what she'd done, but it was caused by some kind of ghost or ghoul. That was always the image in my mind, although it could go either way.
I don't think "if Pullman meant nightmare he'd have said nightmare" can hold up, because then the same thing would apply to "why does he say anbaric when he means electric" or a half dozen other terms that he's already introduced.
I assumed, although I never actually did the research to verify, that the term "nightmare" has some specific etymology which, had something gone a different way in the other universe, could have lead to the word turning out to be something more explicitly spectral-sounding than it does in our world. "Nightmare" itself sounds like it is derived from "a horse that rides at night"… which must have originally referred to some kind of mythical spectral horse that was thought to bring the bad dreams, right?
(Yes, I could look this up on wikipedia in about 5 seconds, but it's more fun to speculate!)
Perhaps in this world the word that eventually came into common usage referred to the rider of that mythical horse, rather than the horse itself?
watch out –anbaric being electric could totally be inferred at this point, but technically it's kind of a spoiler.
That's fascinating – and utterly confusing!
I know what you mean about terms used for self-identification being problematic to use a white person. I have that with the American use of 'people of colour', which we would just never use in Britain. I think because 'coloured' had pejorative connotations. The older generation often still use that as a describer (along with 'half-caste' – *shudder*) but I'm always a little bit taken aback by its use.
Is it true that 'Native American' isn't actually considered to be a good term by (what I would call) Native Americans? Someone was telling me that Amerindian or American Indian was more acceptable, but like you I struggle with using 'Indian'!
The politically correct terminology in Canada seems to be Aboriginal or First Nations, but things are very different south of the border, as the treatment and history of native peoples is not at all the same.
I basically love Lyra because she's a little terror. 😀 Maybe she's an unlikable person, but she's my kind of unlikable, I love her antics and find them hilarious. Plus, there's two key things that make characters like this easier to swallow, that Pullman nails, and SMeyer failed so hard at: one, we're not being informed that Lyra is some saintly wonderful person while watching her behave horribly, and two, other people call her out on her crap. Lyra's flaws are front and center and Pullman makes no attempt to paint her as anything but the little brat she is. Yet, we can also see glimpses of her better qualities too: she's brave, and loyal, and she genuinely cares about Roger and wants to rescue him. Lyra is a good person, just not a very nice one, and I appreciate that I am allowed to work that sort of thing out for myself, instead of being told rapturously how ~amazing~ a person she is.
Plus, that scene of them getting drunk is just hilarious. ^_^
I really enjoyed that Pullman took the time to give us all this delicious world-building here; it's pretty interesting stuff, and I'm a big fan of world-building in general.
The segment with Mrs. Coulter luring Tony Makarios away is pretty damn creepy and deeply fucked-up, isn't it? The change in style works perfectly, I feel. It is odd at first, but I agree that it's good for building that sense of dread and terror. What the hell are the Gobblers, and what are they doing with those children? And notice that they're only taking the poor, lower-class kids: the ones they think won't be missed, and notice that when people "eventually" notice, the police are "stirred into reluctant action". That is so fucked up. But also so horribly realistic. The lower classes are falling through the cracks, their kids going missing, and nobody cares, and the police only reluctantly try to take action… some things in this universe aren't any different from ours.
I loved the description of the evening, as well as the passage about how this was Lyra's world, and she wanted it to stay the same forever, but it's changing around her because someone's stealing children away. It's short, but it evokes such a feeling of dread, and fear, and wistfulness, and such deep sadness. Any innocence Lyra still had is gone now, destroyed when her best friend was stolen away. She wants her world to never change, but she knows it is, and that fills her with fear and sadness and a longing for things to go back to the way they were before today, when the Gobblers were nothing more than a distant fairy tale. They can't, though. Not ever. Things are changing, in very bad ways; and I think this is where Lyra starts to truly grow up.
YEAH, WTF IS MRS. COULTER DOING THERE, THIS CAN'T BE GOOD. AND YES, PLEASE LET LYRA'S IDEA OF WHAT THE GOBBLERS ARE DOING TO KIDS BE WRONG.
GREAT points about Lyra, ITA!
Re: the worldbuilding, I love how the book starts out with the shocking/exciting/intriguing assassination attempt and spying stuff, and then backs up a bit and shows us what Lyra's life is normally like (and with such great detail!).
This is a great chapter (though long!). I am officially hooked.
I get the feeling Mrs Coulter is going to be a fantastic villain. That scene where she patiently and lovingly takes the kids' letters and then just TOSSES THEM IN THE FIRE is the most chilling thing. That she can put forth this facade of kindness and love and then act so cruelly is truly frightening. And I totally thought her monkey was going to eat Tony's sparrow daemon O.o! (Which brings up more questions about daemons: what happens to the person if they are killed? And what happens to the daemon if the person is killed?)
I have a bad feeling about the Master, too. I mean, we are introduced to him through his attempted assassination of Lord Asriel, then we are shown that he thinks he has Lyra's best interests at heart, and now he's involved with Mrs Coulter somehow? It makes me think he is being duped somehow, probably by Mrs Coulter.
I actually like Lyra a lot… although maybe a better way to put it is that I appreciate her. I feel like Pullman is being deliberately anti-sexist by showing us a girl who isn't a stereotypical girl and who isn't admonished for not being ladylike (it seems like when she is punished it's for breaking the rules or being a jerk or disrespectful, not for not fitting the role girls are supposed to occupy). In so many stories it's often only the boys who get to be adventurous, charismatic leaders, the likeable assholes, the rule-breakers. (I mean, see Hermione in Sorcerer's Stone!) So I love that here's a female character who gets to be that way but isn't shown as needing to be reigned in and act more like a lady (well… so far D: ).
In so many stories it's often only the boys who get to be adventurous, charismatic leaders, the likeable assholes, the rule-breakers.
OMG yes! I never even made that connection before, but YES THIS ALL OF THIS.
I’m actually enjoying the fact that, for the most part, Lyra is not a particularly likable character.
I know right?? It's actually pretty refreshing to have a protagonist that sometimes you just want to slap. She a total brat – rude, impulsive, a consummate liar, she's happy to run around on the streets with the other kids, but still acts like a complete snob when she feels like it. But she's also curious and brave and smart.
She's actually a realistic little girl! ^^ And I love her for it, even if I had nothing in common with her at that age. I definitely knew people like her!
Chocolate flavoured alcohol?? That sounds amazing. I want some.
If you haven't tried it, Baileys Irish Cream tastes like chocolate. It has cocoa in it. It's one the few alcoholic drinks I can stand. There's also mint chocolate and caramel versions. It is the GREATEST DRINK EVER.
Mmmm Baileys. Totally delicious!
Mmm, creamy Baileys.
*hopes people here have seen the Mighty Boosh*
Baileys does not taste like chocolate. Baileys makes me feel sick.
(Disclaimer: This might be because when I was 16 I drank a whole pint glass of it thinking it was about as strong as a bacardi breezer.)
And how strong are Baileys and bacardi breezer, respectively?
Erm, [checks]
Baileys is 17% ABV. Bacardi Breezer is like a pre-mixed drink and is just over 5% ABV :p
Damn this chapter was long compared to the rather short first two chapters. So yeah I decided to read this for the first time right along with Mark. So far I'm not disappointed and curious to see where it goes. There's plenty of intrigue and I've got the feeling Mr. Pullman knows what he's doing, also he's not messing about is he…
Chapter 1: Assassination attempt
Chapter 2: Severed Head
Chapter 3: Child kidnapping and underage drinking and smoking.
Also academic opium use in chapter 2 (set up in chapter 1).
Hahahaha, seems so bizarre when you put it that way!
I find it strange that people even consider this to be juvenile fiction. Sometimes I feel like books get assigned to that category merely for having a child protagonist. There are several concepts in this series that I wouldn't expect someone younger than about 15 to be able to grasp and fully understand.
Aww I'm so glad they found him again! That makes me warm and fuzzy!
Have you ever seen Into The West? Extremely sentimental (not to mention fictional), but one of my favourite films as a kid 🙂
[youtube TOAb-sUCm7U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOAb-sUCm7U youtube]
Hey it has a magical white horse, what's not to love?
I tend to avoid films with a ~mystical Irish setting~. They often fall into stereotypes and have other problematic features but I haven't seen this so I won't make judgements, I'll give it go. Thanks for the rec.
Hehe, yeah maybe not – you probably have to be about ten and generally oblivious to the world and its cringeworthy tropes!
“You’ve been all over the roof except the Sheldon Building. What about underground?”
“Underground?”
“There’s as much College below ground as there is above it. I’m surprised you haven’t found that out. Well, I’m going in a minute. You look healthy enough.
To me, this seems like feigned ill-humor at Lyra's romping around the roof. I think he had every intention of "allowing" her to also play underground, by letting that piece of information slip out. I wonder if there's something specific he wants her to learn/find? I want to know what's underground now.
I've been picturing the daemon of the fancy lady/Mrs. Coulter (um, by the way WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT JORDAN??!!) as a babboon (you know that song that goes, "the big babboon by the light of the moon was combing his auburn hair…" – her golden monkey makes me think of that song) but in real life they might not be golden enough:
<img src="http://www.diddilydeedot.zoomshare.com/files/Africa/baboon_10.gif"> <img src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcREnzm51J9stuhzfOvGYVM3ZQOawABvMQpo5YQVbEcZgJD5Z6FfZB3e6kwOfw">
So I think a better option could be a golden lion tamarin, especially because they look a little cuter and sweeter on first glance (but they’re still wild animals!), just like she seems so trustworthy and nice to the children:
<img src="http://www.cites.org/gallery/speciespics/gold_lion_tamarin3.jpg">
This is what it looks like in the movie: don't click if you don't want to be spoiled for movie images
So, a lot closer to your second photo, I think. But not as cute.
I picture it as a golden lion tamarin! I think they're cute, and I've been able to see a bunch of them fairly closeup because they used to live free-range at the National Zoo (workers were always around and had cones out when they were close to pathways.)
I love Pan.
<img src="http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llpqenRptY1qitm9uo1_500.gif"/>
It may be the most pedantic thread in the history of Mark Stuff. Well, at least top 10.
Interesting though…just me? Okay.
Aww, I was just being self-deprecating. It is interesting!
Damn! I can't speak of anything from this chapter, you innocence privilege forbids me.
All I can say is that, to me, this trilogy was about beliefs and our own actions and intentions, nothing to do with that very simplistic and abused term of atheism. It's actually more of a spiritual philosophical journey, with lots and lots of social discourse interspersed, as can be stated by this very chapter. Lyra is a very rebelious girl but she has a good heart and good intentions. She's not a godless savage, she's a very gregarious person who enjoys belonging to a community, helping that community and being recognised in good time as the head of it, as she feels is her due. Very complex sense of self-worth she has.
You say this might be her first time helping others. You are forgetting the rest of the description of her life there; she feels part of a community, she feels that she belongs there, and for her all children are part of that community regardless of birth or place. Children need to have their feuds to assert themselves, so in a normal day it's Jordanians vs Brickburners, but when someone comes from the outside into their joined territory, then those two seemingly opposite sides band together to fight the foreign threat, and so on with any other threat to the group she feels she belongs to. In the Costa boy case, it's the fight of Children vs Gobblers, who of course aren't children, so all children of all places band together in fraternity in order to protect themselves. THIS is what Lyra believes in, the power of the group, the power given by belonging to a community, in this case, the children community is being threatened and they have to stand up for each other.
You've got to remember that Lyra can't belong in the Jordan College because there are no children there, everyone is an adult and the only other company of her age are the servants' children and those in the city. So YES, that helping others is a NORMAL trait of Lyra, who, like you said, wants to belong to a group more than anything.
Are you listening to the full cast recording? That is the best audiobook I own, no lie. Pullman reads his own material so well!
So true!
I believe so; different actors and actresses do each voice, so I'm assuming that's what it is. It threw me a little at first (I've never listened to an audiobook with more than one voice on it) but now that I'm used to it, I find it rather nice.
My friends think I'm crazy for loving this stuff, but ChocoVine is chocolate red wine. It's ridiculously rich and delicious, and I can even get it at my local Walgreens.
My friends think I'm crazy for loving this stuff, but ChocoVine is chocolate red wine. It's ridiculously rich and delicious, and I can even get it at my local Walgreens.
Now that sounds interesting 😀
Since when does "atheist" mean "strongly opposed to religion"?
I don't know how Pullman self-identifies, but the second part of your sentence implies (whether or not that was your intention) that atheists as a group oppose religion in and of itself. This is false. Atheism is lack of belief in any god, or if you want, an "active disbelief" in any god – no more.
Also, agnostic and atheist are not mutually exclusive terms; I consider myself both. Unless you can indicate that he does in fact believe in a god, I'd still call Pullman an atheist, although I acknowledge not everyone uses the same definition as I do, where "passively" not believing "counts".
LOVE THIS CHAPTER SO MUCH. I love the idea of running around the rooftops of fantasy England with zeppelins and canal boats and a daemon. There's so much packed into this chapter! You get a sense of how Lyra's entire life has been up to now, and that it will change drastically after this.
I think my favorite bit is when they go down in the dungeons and find the skulls with the coin daemons. Because dude. SKULLS. WITH COIN DAEMONS. AND THEY GET MAD IF YOU SWITCH THEM AROUND. I'm not sure if the "night-ghast" is an actual ghost or a nightmare that Lyra had, but it's scary either way. DO NOT FUCK WITH DEAD PEOPLE'S DAEMONS.
Mrs. Coulter and her golden monkey = SO CREEPY. I'm kind of pissed off that they cast a blonde actress for her in the movie, even though she acted the part pretty well, because it says over and over that she has DARK hair. Whatever, I know that's a little thing like Hermione's dress being pink instead of blue, but it annoys me nonetheless.
I get the sense that "experimental theology" includes what we would call "science," but since "science" by itself would be heretical or whatever, they put it under the umbrella of learning about God, so it's all accepted by the church. "Tiny particles of matter" sounds like physics to me.
ARGH STOP TEASING US WITH NOT BEING ABLE TO TALK ABOUT THE BOOK'S CONTROVERSIAL NATURE. THERE IS SO MUCH I CAN'T SAY!
I love that Lyra's an asshole. I love that she has no regard for politeness or the feelings of others, and that she lies as easily as she breathes. It's a lot easier to get away with this when you're a kid, of course. I think the fact that she has no parents has something to do with it. She's kind of been "raised" by everyone at Jordan College, so of course she has no consistency with rules and such, so they must all be kind of arbitrary to her.
I love that Lord Asriel basically gives Lyra the idea to go into the dungeons. He's like "OK, you've had fun playing on the roofs where you're not supposed to go, now let me tell you about other places you're probably not supposed to go." ENABLER.
The scene with Roger and Lyra getting drunk is confusing to me, because if your daemons get the benefits and you only get the downsides, why would anyone drink alcohol? Maybe it affects adults differently?
I like the description of how the Gyptian culture works, with all the adults looking out for all the kids and how they're kind of just raised collectively. I like the idea of a tight-knit community like that, although of course the downside is that such a community would have strict behavior guidelines for being accepted as part of it.
Daemons are complicated. They're as complicated as humans, I think. There's no "one thing" you can say they represent, such as a conscience or a soul or whatever. They just are what they are, and I love that Pullman doesn't offer a simple explanation for them, instead choosing to show what they are through descriptions of what they do.
The hair/dress type things really bother me too. I can understand them changing certain wordings, or plot points, when they make books into movies, but it would not affect the story at all to have dyed her hair black, or to make Hermione's dress blue. It just tends to make me think "Did they even read the book??" and get pissed off at it.
I hated the Golden Compass movie in general though.
When I first read the books this was the chapter that drew me in. I remember not being completely sure this was something I'd like, but reading this chapter made me just continue reading through the night. I love Lyra's interactions with the other kids and how long Pullman is willing to spend on setting the scene and atmosphere.
And the Gomler stories are creepy o.0 WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN!
Wow this chapter is long. And I really wanted a gable room with access to an awesome roof after reading this chapter. Yep, nothing ~deep~ from my 13 year old self on this chapter.
MRS. COULTER. The movie had many, many flaws, but I will always get chills on her entrance in the movie. She is so terrifying.
I really have no clue where/when the ~controversy~ over the books started. Was is mostly in the UK, or was there some pushback after they were published in the US? Until the movie came out, I never really heard anything.
Oh, also a thing I noticed that has always stuck with me, one of the dead in the catacombs has a daemon that is a "fair woman"?? I never really thought about it too much, but wouldn't it be totally weird to have another human as your daemon?? Especially because they usually seem to be of the opposite gender. I don't mean weird in a sexy way, just a little awkward right? Plus, imagine your daemon choosing their final form and having it be a human, where your friend has a dragon or like a leopard or whatever. SO SAD.
That was taken out of later editions. You kind of hit on why!
Ha! I'm a genius. Thanks for the info! 🙂
Ahh, I was thinking to myself, I don't remember that!? I must have a newer edition.
Wow, reading the later posts really pays off sometimes! O_O
Maybe it was meant to be a fairy woman? I didn't think humans could have human daemons.
Kidman was Pullman's choice for the role, and he convinced the filmmakers (and according to some reports I've seen, Kidman herself, who wasn't keen on playing a villain) rather than the other way around:
On one point, however, he did express a firm opinion to the film-makers. "From a very early stage I was keen on promoting the idea of Mrs Coulter being played by Nicole Kidman." Mrs. Coulter is [spoilery description removed]. One performance of Kidman's made him want her for the role: ""To Die For', where she plays the weather girl who's murderously working her way up the corporate ladder." Kidman has made one notable change to the character. "I'd described Mrs Coulter's hair as black. I was clearly wrong. You sometimes are wrong about your characters. She's blonde. She has to be." He is full of praise for Kidman's blonde incarnation. "When she raises an eyebrow, the temperature in the room drops by ten degrees."
Ah, that was definitely the interview I was referring to, I remember the bit about being wrong about your characters. Thanks for clearing that up and finding the quote!
And he's right: To Die For was Coulter-esque. Brilliant movie.
Dammit Pullman, I still picture her with dark hair. 🙂
I have always pictured her with blonde hair, even though this directly contradicts the description in the book. And this was before the film (which I've never seen.) No matter how much I think about it I can't see her with dark hair.
I was hoping to have some intelligent things to say about this, but sadly Mrs Coulter freaks me out so much that my brains have dribbled out of my ears. Instead, have this short pop culture reference:
GOD DAMNIT LYRA, YA LITTLE SHIT.
I can't find the interview(s) I read it in, but Pullman has described himself as sort of being caught in between the identifiers "agnostic" and "atheist," and most articles I can remember refer to him as an agnostic atheist.
YOU ARE NOT PREPARED.
YOU ARE NOT PREPARED.
The gobbler things were sort of scary. Like being confused and learning as you go even if it is frustrating
I wanted to bring up how I always saw Oxford/Jordan every time I've read these books (although I could be very, very wrong) I was under the impression that in Pullman's world, Oxford is only the name of a town that is home to several different colleges/universities, Jordan being one, rather than Jordan being a kind of branch of the larger Oxford University. In this chapter, he talks about Jordan specifically OWNING land/buildings all the way to London rather than managing them for Oxford, and one of the reasons why they built underground (aside from that being an excellent location for catacombs and wine cellars) is that Jordan had grown so much that it ran out of land before coming up against lands owned by other colleges in Oxford. Also, the rivalries between the children of the colleges reads more to my like the rivalries between SEC schools here where I live than rivalries between different departments of the same university. Did anyone else read the first few chapters this way?
I think a lot of Americans get confused by the descriptions of Oxford and Jordan when they are trying to work out how different Lyra's world is from our won, but my impression is that the Oxford of the book and the collection of colleges that make it up, is not really too terribly different from the way the Oxford in our own world operates.
So. I have a question. Can daemons turn into human? Rather than animals.
Lalala you are never ever ever prepared! Hahaha
"I love the idea that Pantalaimon is offended that other dæmons are so boring. Brilliant."
Pan is ace 😀 and you are SO NOT PREPARED.
I agree. This chapter was SO long! Not that I’m complaining, it’s just goig to take me a log time to catch up with you guys at this point.
I’m really not complaining though because I love these world building chapters like this. It’s why I like the fantasy genre so much. Lyra does seem a bit of an obnoxious brat, but I think that’s what’s making this story “real” so far. I can see, how a lonely child raised in duel “classes” can act and behave the way she does.
I must say- I LOVED the way Pullman told the kidnapping story. It was so beautiful and intriguing.
And one last note- that final line about the golden monkey? Mouth fell wide opened, big gasp, an a big “whaaaaaaat?” fell out of my mouth. In fact, part of me is glad I’m behind so I don’t have to wait, I can just continue reading right after I post this. 😀
This comment is really late and sorry if this has already been brought up. When I was reading about the coins being with the dead bodies reminded me of how the Greeks ( I think there could other cultures who do this as well) would put coins with their dead ones so they could pay the fare to Charon so they cross from side of the river to the other in the Underworld.
Chapter 3 – yet again it's the casual mentions that get the biggest response from me. Yeah, night-ghasts exists, no big deal. Daemons shape-shift but only when they're young, whatever.
And then there are golden monkeys and everything is awful : (