What is the Golden Compass about?

Question:

What is the Golden Compass about?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: It's the first book of a trilogy by Philip Pullman. The main character is Lyra, a young girl raised at Oxford in a primarily male-dominated academic environment.

She's precocious and passionate - she does what she believes is right, even when she knows it could mean trouble.

The book does open with her getting caught where she shouldn't be, though she actually does disrupt an assassination attempt (as another wrote). The man doesn't punish her, but he's very harsh, though she saved his life.

It doesn't stop her from playing with her best friend, Roger (a servant's son), but he disappears. In the meantime, Lyra is introduced to a beautiful woman with a golden monkey (her Daiman), and she finds she'll be going to live with her - that her older guardian feels it's in her best interest. Before he sends her, however, he gives her the golden compass. With experimentation, she learns how to use it - it has many symbols and Lyra can use it to ask questions and get answers - really to "see" the future or know what's right or wrong. It's a very valuable tool and no one can read the instrument like Lyra can (there are a few others out there, and academics that read them must use many reference books to understand what it tells them).

The bigger part is the world Lyra lives in. Everyone has a Daiman (sp?), sort of the yin or yang in animal form of your personality (for balance and it's usually the opposite sex of the human) - an external symbol. There's also Dust, and it reacts differently to children than adults, so the Church is doing experiments with children in an effort to study it. The experiments are ugly, and Lyra discovers them and does what she can to search for and save her friend Roger, because she's sure that's what happened to him when he went missing.

Really, the land and the people are amazing. I'm almost afraid to see the movie - I don't know if it can come close to what I pictured when reading. It's hard to say exactly what the book is about, but I think one of the other answers said it well - religion, what's wrong with it. Lots of symbolism. If you like fantasy, I'd advise you to take a look. It's YA, but I'm not a youngster and I'd recommend it to anyone who like this genre.