His Dark Material: Northern Light Book Review
I remember reading reviews about the film, and like all reviews, it said that the book was waaay better. I saw the movie and although I didn’t remember much except that there was a bear and lots of snow, I felt that the movie was fun. So I promised myself that I would read the book, the one that inspired the movie, the one that is supposedly waaaay better and the story explored in greater details.
And after around two decades, I did. The book does have great details and world building with the concepts of daemon and alternate universe, which is great and understandably why it triggered the adaptation in the first place. The scenes also travels from university village, to floating houses and all the way to the north pole, which makes good stuff for movies.
But the book has two things that make it weak, in my opinion.
- It leans too much on fate and you can almost hear the writer whispering to himself as he writes, that the plot will move in a so-and-so way. To accomplish this, characters keep saying that Lyra, the main character, will be doing this and that, and saviour in the bigger scheme of things. It feels contrived at times. What makes it worse, when the climax came, I still don’t get what was so great in her part that can’t be achieved by someone else. Maybe it would be answered in the next two books? But then comes the second point:
- The main character has no motive. Lyra is clever, active, resourceful, brave but she doesn’t seem to have anything that she clearly wants. She’s clearly scared of her daemon taken away, but other than moving from one place/adventure to another, there’s not much change to her and things that change her. Since there’s no motive, there’s no arc. She did become better at lying in the end, but that doesn’t seem to fit for character of the Chosen One type.
The book itself is well written and easy to read but the story is just not up to my expectations.
Note on the printing: the cover is beautiful but somehow the pages literally came off while I was reading. Also there were typos in the prelude chapter of the sequel, at the end of the book.
The book’s language is quite easy to understand and suitable for its target audience, young adults and the book seems harmless enough. Reviews on Goodread however caution against recommending the series to children as the later books have some cruel acts. I wouldn’t know since I am not planning to read them, but from what I read in this book, I believe the lack of character’s building and the tendency of Lyra getting out of problems through lying, seems to be a discouragement from recommending this book. Harry Potter being a bland alternative to this, might have some bumbling adult characters, but at least it balances out with some cautionary tales and the characters do not get out of trouble by mostly deus ex machina.
Overall an interesting fantasy world but a not recommended read from me.
