The Golden Compass is the first book in the His Dark Materials, a trilogy written by Philip Pullman in the 1990's. These books have been called the "atheist's" Chronicles of Narnia because of the combination of fantasy and religious philosophy that drive the story.

His Dark Materials is essentially about the triumph of human knowledge and strength over a divine creator, who happens to call himself "God" (although he is not the actual Creator of the Universe). The characters in the books struggle against the oppressive regime of "The Church" in their world as well. In many ways, the trilogy is a sort of modern, alternate-universe take on Milton's Paradise Lost, in which "rogue angels wage war on Heaven" and man commits Original Sin. From Pullman's perspective, human beings have been wrongfully indoctrinated that desire and knowledge are "sinful," when really they are the qualities that we should strive for the most.

Pullman himself stated in an interview that he doesn't see any atheistic agenda in his novels, but that they "promote... the good qualities of kindness, courage, curiosity, and open-mindedness." Pullman is also not an atheist, but an agnostic.

Besides fantasy and theological elements, the trilogy also contains quite a bit of particle physics and even philosophy, which includes references to the I Ching.

The Golden Compass film is somewhat similar to the book, but the makers decided to leave out or alter some of the important themes of resisting organized religion and the glorification of human knowledge over "the divine." In this way, the movie is actually a very "watered down" version of the book, since a person could see the movie and not detect even the slightest hint of an atheistic, or even anti-organized religion message.




This is a clip from the original ending of the movie The Golden Compass, which was cut from the film. This ending is truer to the original story, in which the protagonist of the series, Lyra, witnesses the death of her childhood friend at the hands of her father. This segues into the second book of the series "The Subtle Knife," in which Lyra and her companion from our world explore multiple universes and search for the source of Dust and human divinity.

Alternate Ending... or the "Real" Ending.

This is a link to the soundtrack from the movie, as composed by Alexandre Desplat. "The Golden Compass" theme song I think especially fits the tone of the film and the books. Soundtrack Samples Via Amazon


Random House website for His Dark Materials

A Philip Pullman website