A Writing Lesson from Philip Pullman

Or, The Golden Compass And The Perfectly Constructed Chapter

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There is no book that I have revisited more times than The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Released in 1995 under the name The Northern Lights in the UK, the novel tells the story of Lyra Belacqua and her dæmon companion Pantalaimon and their journey through a world very much like our own, but also very different. Their journey continues into two sequels, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, which together make up the His Dark Materials trilogy.

And like any book that one revisits time and time again, The Golden Compass has been different things for me in different stages of my life. When I was Lyra’s age, the novel was a thrilling coming-of-age tale full of rescue, betrayal, adventure, fantasy, and imagination. When I was older, in high school, and reading too much poetry for my own good, The Golden Compass became an allegory for Milton’s Paradise Lost (which Pullman has routinely cited as a major influence on his trilogy). Ever since college, though, The Golden Compass has become my go-to guide to constructing a story.

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Pullman faces a problem that all fantasy authors have to grapple with: How do you explicate a fantasy world without losing your audience? If you’ve sat through Tolkien’s mind-numbing narration of the council of Elrond or the convoluted first third of Frank Herbert’s Dune, then you know what I mean. Pullman, it seems, has one simple rule for himself – never lose sight of your characters. It’s a good rule, but it’s one thing to hear it from me, but another thing to watch an author pull it off.

Pullman manages to confine all his major exposition to the first three chapters, but I’d like to look at chapter 3, “Lyra’s Jordan”, for two reasons. First, chapters 1 and 2 revolve around the central plot device of Lyra hiding in a wardrobe in the Retiring Room, seeing and overhearing things that she is not supposed to know about, trying desperately not to be found out; so without that scaffolding in chapter 3, how does Pullman create tension? Second, Pullman makes some rather brilliant storytelling moves in chapter 3 that allow him to simultaneously introduce his protagonists (Lyra), his antagonist (Mrs Coulter), his major plot points (abduction, Dust, dæmons), and his major themes (growing up, “innocent” childhood versus moral adulthood) all without ever losing sight of his characters. If you have a copy of The Golden Compass on hand, pull it off the shelf and follow along! If not, check out this audio version of the book.

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Pullman has a number of ideas he wants to introduce or reemphasize to us in this chapter – this history of this world is different than ours, people practice a kind of magical science called “experimental theology”, through which they study something called “Dust”, and every person in the world has a dæmon companion. But the chapter begins not with a history lesson of our fantasy world, but with an account of day-to-day life. Moreover, it is the day-to-day life of a child who cares little about politics or history or the other things that the aforementioned Tolkien and Herbert so concern themselves with. Lyra has her dæmon, Pantalaimon, and we have to just accept that he, like everybody else’s dæmon, simply exists. Lyra is vaguely aware of “experimental theology”, and so we are treated to her view that “it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really. Probably the stars had daemons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them” (p. 26)

This is the power of Pullman’s narrative. His world-building is done through the perspective of the character, and in doing so he shows us what they care and don’t care about. So while on one hand, “experimental theology” is important for the story, Lyra couldn’t care less. She has wars to wage against rivals groups of children, be they townie urchins or the children of the Gyptian river clans. Pullman shows us her life as a “barbarian”, a “coarse and greedy savage”, and a “half-wild cat”, with the expectation of the days when her guardian, Lord Asriel, visits, when she has to put on airs and interact with the high society of Oxford.

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This is an example of establishing routine. Nothing immerses us in a world more than showing us what happens when there is no conflict. What do people concern themselves with in their daily lives? How do people interact before you introduce the stakes? Basically, why should we care about these characters? Pullman understands that in order to inhabit a fantasy world, you must be able to inhabit vivid and real characters. And then once the routine in established, you break it. Consider the following paragraph, which succeeds a recounding of one of Asriel’s visits:

So Lyra's life had been, before the day when she decided to hide in the Retiring Room, and first heard about Dust. And of course the Librarian was wrong in saying to the Master that she wouldn't have been interested. She would have listened eagerly now to anyone who could tell her about Dust. She was to hear a great deal more about it in the months to come, and eventually she would know more about Dust than anyone in the world; but in the meantime, there was all the rich life of Jordan still being lived around her. And in any case there was something else to think about. A rumor had been filtering through the streets for some weeks: a rumor that made some people laugh and others grow silent, as some people scoff at ghosts and others fear them. For no reason that anyone could imagine, children were beginning to disappear. (p. 29-30)

This paragraph gives me chills. In the simple phrase, “So Lyra’s life had been,” we understand that this routine has been broken and we cannot go back. Lyra has learned about Dust, something outside of her routine, something special, something that will drive the plot. Then, in a few simple sentences, Pullman foreshadows Lyra’s character arc (“…eventually she would know more about Dust than anyone in the world”), emphasizes Lyra’s quotidian life in Oxford (“…there was the rich life of Jordan still being lived around her”), and introduces the major conflict of the novel (“…children were beginning to disappear.”) This paragraph is the fulcrum upon which this chapter, and possibly the entire book, turns. 

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Now, we meet our antagonist. In the town of Limehouse, far away from Oxford, a young urchin named Tony Makarios and his dæmon encounter a woman. “A lady in a long yellow-red fox-fur coat, a beautiful young lady whose dark hair falls, shining delicately, under the shadow of her fur-lined hood,” Pullman writes, “The young lady's daemon is moving out from beside the fox-fur coat. He is in the form of a monkey, but no ordinary monkey: his fur is long and silky and of the most deep and lustrous gold.” Take a moment to read that description. Without a word of dialogue, Pullman cannily establishes her as a figure to be simultaneously admired and feared. She asks Tony for “help”, and soon he is spirited away on a shipload of other children to some unknown destination in the north for some unknown fate.

Back in Oxford, the rumors of child abductions reach our protagonist. Another writer might have her make a worried pronouncement, some sort of “what do we do?” kind of speech, some sort of recognition of the problem, but instead we get a fantastic character moment. Lyra dubs the kidnappers “gobblers” and invites her best friend, Roger Parslow to play a game of “kids and gobblers”. Again, Pullman never loses sight of his characters, their values, and their perspectives. It makes the plot and the conflicts and the fantasy world they take place in feel natural. Later, when Lyra’s friends, including Roger, begin to disappear, we naturally feel her distress, her sense of powerlessness, and we root for her. We’re ready to see her take action, and we do not need to wait long. 

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For amidst all the chaos caused by the gobblers, the Master of Jordan College summons Lyra to a formal luncheon where he introduces her to a woman named Mrs. Coulter. Pullman writes, “She was beautiful and young. Her sleek black hair framed her cheeks, and her daemon was a golden monkey.” And that’s how the chapter ends. And we’re hooked. The rivalry between Lyra and Mrs. Coulter, the conflict of the gobblers, and the richness of Pullman’s world will propel us through the rest of The Golden Compass and on into the rest of the trilogy. There is so much to unpack from this single chapter – so much foreshadowing and character development and world-building – that this single article can barely do it justice. “Lyra’s Jordan” from The Golden Compass is truly storytelling at its finest.

Note: all page numbers taken from the His Dark Materials omnibus from Random House Publications. All pictures, with the exception of the book cover, are drawn by Philip Pullman himself.