HIT->Golden Compass

[Laura Richards <LERich7@AOL.COM>]

Dear LM_Netters,
I've started a reading group with some advanced 6th grade readers using
Philip Pullman's THE GOLDEN COMPASS.  Here's some of the ideas I got from
fellow LM_Netters:

Visit the Golden Compass homepage for a reading group guide, questions for
discussion, glossary of key words and characters, a history of the
alethiometer, and an interview of the author about how to write a book
 (funny and interesting).  The address is:
http://www.randomhouse.com/goldencompass/aol/

Brad May of Topeka, Kansas had lots of great ideas:
About the word 'anbaric':  The root word 'bar' is from the Greek 'baros',
meaning weight, which now is used to describe a unit of pressure as measured
by a barometer.  Placing 'an' before 'bar', changes the meaning to not or
without.  So anbaric lamps are vacuum bulbs, like the light bulbs we use in
our world.

He also says ... The book has a rich and stimulating vocabulary, which should
provide wonderful discussion material among linguistically talented children.
 Students could investigate the meanings and origins of words such as the
following:
oblation, consistorial, Tokay, chocolatl, and chthonic (one of my favorites).

A trace of the roots of alethiometer is especially interesting.  Using
Webster's Third New International Dictionary, I identified the Greek 'aleth'
(truth), then traced it back further to 'lethe' (oblivion, forgetfulness),
which included this example of usage: <severances of the soul for which there
is neither balm nor ~ W. R. Gregg>.  I was astounded to find the book's
themes of truth, severance, and lethargy all combined in the single world
coinded as the name of Lyra's instrument.

There appear to be many spatial anomalies and temporal anachronisms that
would provide topics for research and discussion.  For example:
1. Is there a Jordan College in Oxford?  What is the name of the real college
there?
2. Why is the body of water north of England called the German Ocean?  What
do we call it in our world?
3. What is unusual about the zeppelin ride to London?  When were zeppelins
invented and where did they operate?
4. What is the historical joke in the name Pope John Calvin?
5. Who were the gyptians?  How are they similar to or different from the
gypsies?
6. Is there, in our own mythologies, a "great whale Grimssdur" or is this the
author's invention?
7. What is anomalous about "Captain Hudson's famous voyage to Van Tieren's
Land"?

What is the nature of the technologies mentioned in the story?  How are they
similar to what we use?  What are naphtha lights, anbaric lamps, elementary
particles, chthonic railways, coal sprit refineries, etc...

These questions are significant when we consider the book's prefatory
statement:  "The first volume is set in a universe like ours, but different
in many ways.  The second volume is set in the universe we know.  The third
volume will move between the universes."

By the way, the sequel, THE SUBTLE KNIFE, will be published in July.

Of course, there is also more traditional material for discussion of
character and plot:
The 12-year-old Lyra as heroine, with her strengths and faults vs. the
knowledge and wisdom (or lack thereof) of the elders.

And the non-traditional:
The symbiosis between the people and their daemons.

Students might not know all those animal names, which would be another
possibility for investigation.

This book provides wonderful opportunities for doing information searches in
dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the Web.

I hope these ideas are as helpful to all of you as they've been to me.  I'll
report back to let you know how the reading group is going.

Laura Richards
Central School
Glencoe, IL  60022
LERich7@aol.com