I haven't yet seen 'The Golden Compass' - though I'm convinced that, however good the animation, nothing will live up to the unmissable combination of book + imagination which, to my mind, will always be one step ahead of script + computer programme.
I like the idea of the daemons, though - the creature that each child is born with and supposedly represents their souls, taking various animal guises until puberty, when its identity becomes fixed.
I'm convinced that I, too, have a daemon. However, its shape was fixed not at puberty when, as far as I was concerned, my identity was about as as clearcut as a lesser cloud formation, and with approximately the same clarity of thinking, but when my ideas became fixed, my views stereoptyped, my hopes for the future suddenly bounded, no longer limitless.
As soon the first middle-age appropriate cliche sprang fully formed from my lips, my daemon would have been given life. And unlike the main 'Golden Compass' characters, my daemon, were it to be visible, wouldn't be a snow-white and adorable furry creature (if it did have fur, it would either be of an ethically correct fun variety, or appear as enormous, peri-menopausal eyebrows).
It would, without doubt, be one of those choleric ex-Indian army majors much favoured as lesser characters and occasional murder victims by Agatha Christie.
It would harrumph its way round the corridors of my life, spending the majority of the day under the table, curled up at my feet in a semi-stupor and then wake up in the late afternoon after overhearing a remark it disagreed with, and set off to do battle against other daemons with its sword stick, stagger back 20 minutes later with an expression of supreme self-satisfaction and fall asleep again.
So if you've got one, too, what the devil does it look like?
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15 comments:
Have read the books - planning on giving the film a miss.
Mine's a lynx. A lazy lynx who ventures out just once a day to savage and devour some poor unsuspecting furry animal.
The rest of the time, it sleeps. When it's not having sex.
wild=^..^=
You have a gorgeous lynx and I have an ex-colonel. One of us has a severe self-image problem, and I have a horrible feeling it's not you.....
We took our youth group to see it although, of course, they missed all the deeper levels - they just liked all the fighting. I'm not quite sure what Phillip Pullman would make of that. Anyway If I had a daemon I'm afraid that It would be constantly changing and showing the world that I actually haven't grown up yet.
Gwen: Ah, but do you want to be grown up? You always sound wise beyond your years on your blog, I have to say.....
You know the Chronicles of Narnia? I think mine looks a lot like a really naughty Mr Tumnus.
Really, really naughty.
Tina: I am seriously beginning to suspect that you, too, have a much more interesting life than me. Naughty fauns, eh? I'm going have to revise my ideas about you.....
I can't decide. Possibly a rodent version of David Hasselhoff, or Mrs Overall from Acorn Antiques with an Uzi. Either way, it ain't pleasant.
Mya x
i loved the northern lights i read it when i was about 7. The daemons in particulor appealled to me. I would probably like one a bit like the sprite goblin thing off the advert!
http://www.pregnancy2parenting.net
Mya: Why the film-makers or, indeed Pullman neglected to think of either of these is a mystery to me. And may I say how relieved I am that you've not gone the erotic
animal route (unless you count David H).
Maxine: You read it when you were 7? I am v impressed. Elf/sprite thing sounds good to me (though see above for caveat re eroticism)
I think mine could be a plank, 2 in fact, rather short.
Crystal xx
Much as I would like to think otherwise, I rather think mine would be a cross between Timothy, the Ronnie Corbett character in 'Sorry', and the headmistress in the original St Trinian's Ealing Comedies. Now THAT'S depressing.
Either Road Runner (meep meep!) or the Tazmanian Devil. Scatty and all over the place, certainly.
NMO x
I say, Omega Mum, dashed clever of you, to give the Colonel an airing. Why, good Lord, he and Smythington-Blythe were saying just the other day in the club what a lark this blogging business has turned out to be. Frightfully good chaps, y'know.
Your friend,
Captn (Arthur) Hastings
Albany
London
CJ: Don't you dare put yourself down. If planks are involved, they're some wonderful, rich and rare branch from a living tree. And I refuse to countenance anything else. So there.
Potty Mummy: Depressing? It's terrific. Can I swap my daemon for yours?
Nunhead: Does it do all the noises as well?
M@L: See you for a snifter at Bertram's Hotel later on, then?
Mine is a pegasus.
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