Reading: The Golden Compass

There's not much else to do on family trips than read by the pool and reject invitations to get in the pool by my nieces and nephew. And get a little Sun-In crazy (I haven't been this blonde since Allie messed up my highlights two years ago and I had a solid spot of yellow on the top of my head). Anyways, I was really proud of myself for reading the 400-page The Golden Compass in like 4 days until I talked to Kara who packed away a 1,000-pager (The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet) in about the same time. Whatever, she was an English major.

So, I read The Golden Compass because of the movie, of course. I haven't yet seen the movie, I was pissed at all the hubbub about Christians boycotting it (mostly on Facebook from what I've seen) and I will definitely see it. Also, I was intrigued because I had heard that it was the Atheists' response to The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I wasn't going to check it out until multiple friends had read them (there's three in the series) and loved them. Also, Wampler (my campus ministry leader at Mizzou) loved it - or rather, loved the first one and thought they went downhill in quality for the last two.

The book reminded me a lot of Harry Potter in the style of writing and because it centered around one "chosen" child growing up not knowing who they really are and going on adventures and who will eventually save the world. As far as the Atheist undertones, the only clear way this came out was that none of the characters were completely honorable or completely dishonorable. In the beginning the Master of Jordan College (who had been taking care of Lyra - the main character - since she was little) tried to poison Lyra's Uncle Asriel (who's Lyra's only blood and very cool). What?? The Master must be evil, right? Well, no, not exactly. Later on it looks in on a conversation between the Master and his colleague and he did it only because he was afraid because of what Uncle Asriel was up to and thought it was the right thing to do. So do you hate him or not? Pretty much all of the characters are like this - in fact, I was a little annoyed by Lyra sometimes.

But having complicated characters is realistic, right? And also a sign of good writing, I think. However, it seemed like there was less of a possibility of there actually being a right answer, like the right thing to do. Everything was confusing. Overall, it was an interesting and entertaining book and kind of reminded me of The DaVinci Code in some ways, but I don't know why. Maybe because I felt like I had to finish it even after I got bored.