13 November 2007

Pullman-Tolkien mash-up

BRIAN SIBLEY : my blog: DAEMONIZED is a post describing a book that shall certainly feature this Christmas at Petrona Towers: that is, Brian Sibley's movie guide for Northen Lights (oh, OK then, The Golden Compass if you must). As we can attest from his many Lord of the Rings and Narnia books that adorn our abode, Brian is the "book of the film" writer par excellence, not to mention the beautiful illustrations that accompany his commentaries, whether movie stills or Pauline Baynes' evocative and lovely pictures of Narnia.

I had not appreciated the delightful mergings of Tolkien and Pullman that are revealed in Brian's latest volume (see his post for the "inside story", ha): all the more reason to look forward to it, and of course, the movie. Northern Lights is Pullman's masterpiece; unfortunately the rest of the trilogy does not match up to the quite brilliant and wonderful first volume -- one of those unique books that seems to be set apart from anything else one has read. (The second volume started well, but after the first few chapters most of it was a disappointment, and the third was more of the same). Maybe the second two books will work better as films than they did as books. And of course, as well as the small companion volume Lyra's Oxford, we have a fourth book in the main series (previously billed as a trilogy) to look forward to soon, apparently.

13 Nov 2007 19:08:29 | Books

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