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Not too dark for me
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From: Linda Elaine Mundt <LEMundt>
Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 11:05:38 -0500
I, like Katy, tend not to favor fantasy, but when two of my neighbors talked about staying up to the very wee morning hours reading, I decided to venture forth.
I was hooked by the first line when I read about "Lyra and her daemon...." I had never seen that word in literature, only in discussions of mythology and psychology. Right from page one, I began to hope that Pullman had chosen the term for its mythic meaning and that the stories would take on mythic proportions. I began to hope that the daemon is the same as the Greek daemon
(or daimon) which is something akin to a soul, but a soul that comes from the mother, not the father as the Christian church began to teach around the Middle Ages (at which time, too, the daemon became a demon). I had really big expectations after reading the first four words! ....including the name Lyra which brings to mind the lyre, a musical instrument used by ancient Greeks for, among other things, accompaniment to large tales.
I'm just starting the second book, but I'm not yet disappointed. In The Golden Compass, I like the suspense, the pacing, and the plot line, but I like most of all the girl Lyra setting off in search of the lost children. (And how different this story is from that other story about a girl going off to search for lost boys....) I love the David and Goliath quality to the battle between the forces of Lyra and her poor cohorts and Mrs. Coulter, the betraying mother. I love that Lyra sets off to rescue her errant father, despite his shabby treatment of her. She is a girl who is not daunted by small things that might get in the way of her commitments. I'm especially fond of the notion that not all witches and not all bears are the same and that the church is only one of the many forces reckoning with reality and realities.
I think my spiritual support group (including the children, ages 9 through 18) will love discussing it, and I will recommend it for an upcoming session.
I expect the series to be discussed on many levels with many ages for a long while. (I'm delighted to learn that Sharon Grover has had success in using the series with children.)
Linda Mundt UW-Madison School of Library and Information Studies
Received on Fri 04 May 2001 11:05:38 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 11:05:38 -0500
I, like Katy, tend not to favor fantasy, but when two of my neighbors talked about staying up to the very wee morning hours reading, I decided to venture forth.
I was hooked by the first line when I read about "Lyra and her daemon...." I had never seen that word in literature, only in discussions of mythology and psychology. Right from page one, I began to hope that Pullman had chosen the term for its mythic meaning and that the stories would take on mythic proportions. I began to hope that the daemon is the same as the Greek daemon
(or daimon) which is something akin to a soul, but a soul that comes from the mother, not the father as the Christian church began to teach around the Middle Ages (at which time, too, the daemon became a demon). I had really big expectations after reading the first four words! ....including the name Lyra which brings to mind the lyre, a musical instrument used by ancient Greeks for, among other things, accompaniment to large tales.
I'm just starting the second book, but I'm not yet disappointed. In The Golden Compass, I like the suspense, the pacing, and the plot line, but I like most of all the girl Lyra setting off in search of the lost children. (And how different this story is from that other story about a girl going off to search for lost boys....) I love the David and Goliath quality to the battle between the forces of Lyra and her poor cohorts and Mrs. Coulter, the betraying mother. I love that Lyra sets off to rescue her errant father, despite his shabby treatment of her. She is a girl who is not daunted by small things that might get in the way of her commitments. I'm especially fond of the notion that not all witches and not all bears are the same and that the church is only one of the many forces reckoning with reality and realities.
I think my spiritual support group (including the children, ages 9 through 18) will love discussing it, and I will recommend it for an upcoming session.
I expect the series to be discussed on many levels with many ages for a long while. (I'm delighted to learn that Sharon Grover has had success in using the series with children.)
Linda Mundt UW-Madison School of Library and Information Studies
Received on Fri 04 May 2001 11:05:38 AM CDT
