Northern Lights [BBC Radio Dramatization]

{first of His Dark Materials trilogy; fantasy, steampunk, children's fantasy, BBC full cast adaptation, abridged}(1995/ 2004)

(PS - 'scuse spellings. I'll have to look up things I heard.)

Lyra Belacqua is a fourteen year old girl who lives in Jordan College, Oxford in a parallel world to ours where everyone has a 'daemon' of the opposite gender to them who reflects their souls. These daemons take animal shapes; for children, their daemons can take any animal shape they choose though they tend to have favourites but at some point, when the person becomes an adult, their daemon's shape becomes fixed in a form that reflects their human's characteristics (servants' daemons tend to be dogs, for instance). Lyra can talk to her daemon, show more Pantalaimon, but not to other people's. Daemons can communicate with each other and it is ingrained into everyone that no one can touch another person's daemon. There is, in this world, a substance that has been named 'Dust' which seems to be linked to daemons and may be used to create powerful magic if it can be harnessed.

Lyra doesn't go to school but runs half wild around the college and Oxford streets, occasionally being taught by one or another of the junior academics so her knowledge of the world is somewhat skewed - though she amply fills in gaps in her knowledge with her imagination (though the narrator claims at one point that - though she lies artfully - she isn't imaginative enough to be scared of the unknown). She has been told that her parents died in a balloon accident (this world, which would probably coincide with our 1920s, uses zeppelins for travel) but her uncle, Lord Asriel, visits the college periodically and interviews her on occasion to see how she's doing.

We are told that children around Britain have been disappearing, rumouredly didnapped by 'the Gobblers' and one day one of Lyra's good friends, Roger the Jordan College kitchen boy, disappears. Lyra is fiercely determined to find him especially as no one else seems to care. Meanwhile the beautiful and fascinating Mrs Coulter, whose daemon takes the form of a golden monkey, visits Jordan College and offers to take on Lyra as an assistant and educate her further to which the captivated Lyra eagerly agrees. However as she is leaving the Master of Jordan College, who is obviously troubled by her new appointment, gives her a rare instrument called an alethiometer but tells her to keep it secret.

Lyra initially enjoys her studies until she realises that Mrs Coulter doesn't care for her but - as Pant, who is scared of the golden monkey, has always insisted - is keeping her as a pet so Lyra runs away and is rescued by her friends, the Gyptians (akin to gypsies), who travel through Britain on canal boats. One of their children is also missing so they all decide that an expedition must be made to the North, where rumours say the missing children have been taken to be experimented on, to find them and rescue them all. There she meets the American hot air balloonist Lee Scoresby and the armoured bear Iorek Byrnison who help her in her quest and she learns to manipulate and read the alethiometer to guide them.

Lyra, as a child, easily forms fierce loyalties and dislikes. Since we see her world (albeit in the third person) through her and Pantalaimon's eyes, though we can glimpse something of the true personalities of the adults, it makes it hard to work out whom she can trust. It also lends something of an intensity to Lyra's adventures; she's always doing something like playing on the rooves or feuding with the Townies (where allegiances seem to be able to change from day to day) or rescuing her friends from the Gobblers (the mythical people who, rumour claims, are taking the missing children). Lyra may not always be honest but she does have strong convictions and is willing to go to the ends of the earth (literally) to find her friend.

I read this book many years ago and it was worth listening to it again. I enjoyed listening to this BBC Radio full cast dramatisation (though I learned that I need to be actively doing something else while listening; I borrowed this for a TIOLI challenge and was listening to it on holiday, towards the end of the month) and I increased the play speed so it sounded a bit squeaky until I got used to it. But after the initial chapters I found it easy to listen to it.

June 2025
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