Golden thoughts

During my first year or two at BYU I worked for the children's librarian at the Harold B. Lee Library. I enjoyed my job, especially because I got to see all of the newest books for children and young adults in my role as copy editor of the Children's Book and Play Review. Once a year--maybe twice--we held a book sale to clear out our collection of review copies. At one of these sales, my boss handed me a book I'd never heard of, Phillip Rothman's The Golden Compass, and told me I should read it, that it was a wonderful book that she absolutely loved. I bought it, took it home, and thought very little of it for the next eight or nine years until about six months ago when the hubbub surrounding the Compass movie first exploded.

My mom asked me whether I knew anything about the book, and I said all I knew was that a respected children's librarian thought it was great and that it was sitting on my bookshelf. As the furor over the movie increased, Jeremy decided to read it, then I did, and then just this week we rented the movie and watched it. And now here are my thoughts:

As I recall, the biggest controversy about the movie/book/author is the purported anti-religion/anti-God/anti-Catholic bent. After having read the book and seen the movie, I will say that this attitude is much more prevalent in the movie than the book. As I read the book--which is an intriguing, complex yarn--I was reading it through the current cultural lens, trying to identify any anti-God messages. And, with me reading for this, I didn't feel like it overpowered the book in any way. I think one could read the book as somewhat anti-Catholic, but it would be much harder to convincingly argue that it's blatantly anti-God or anti-faith. I'm told that these sentiments are more clearly conveyed in the next books in the trilogy, which I haven't read and therefore cannot comment on. Regardless, I consider myself to be a reasonably good reader, and I think it would be a stretch to read The Golden Compass as a blatantly atheist text. And yes, I say this despite the fact that Rothman is an avowed atheist. The author is dead, people! (That is figurative; Rothman is obviously alive, but the author does not control a text after writing it; rather, readers become co-authors in creating meaning in the text, meaning that the author's intention is not paramount--perhaps not even that relevant.)

So, with all of that said, I'll move on to the movie, which neither of us really cared for. First, I would say that it is much more blatantly anti-Catholic, in particular, and more generally anti-religion/faith/God. Perhaps this is because, in part, movie makers typically assume that viewers are generally stupid and need everything spelled out for them. Yet if that's the case, the movie was disappointing on many levels, since despite the movie's obvious efforts to reveal plot secrets and details without letting the reader puzzle them out at all, Jeremy and I had to wonder whether someone who hadn't read the book would be able to adequately follow the confusing twists and gaps in the storyline. Unfortunately, the film seemed more keen on highlighting special effects and costuming than on character or plot. It was visually compelling, but as a story I thought the weaknesses overpowered the strengths.

So yes, I enjoyed the book, although I think it's more of an adult read than a tween/young adult read. (I think any novel with a child as a protagonist is automatically labeled as a book for children, even though I think the complexity of plot and theory in the book would go over most kids' heads, although everyone likes animals, right? :) And while I don't currently feel overly interested in reading the rest of the trilogy, Jeremy says he'd like to, so perhaps I will as well.