Book One, the Golden Compass, introduces the twelve-year-old heroine, Lyra, an apparent orphan who lives among scholars of Jordan College of Oxford, in a world not our own but eerily similar. In her world, humans are accompanied by "daemons", animal beings embodying the soul. The daemon's dialogue with its owner serves as a window into the character's thoughts and feelings, and is reminiscent of the internal dialogues that children have with their imagination. The story follows brave Lyra as she is propelled by fate into a dangerous adventure of unknown purpose, guided only by her truth-telling alethiometer. Her journey is filled with colorful characters, exotic peoples, armored bears and witches, and increasingly hostile encounters with agents of the powerful Church as she follows the footsteps of her Uncle Asriel to the barren North, finally to step out of her world entirely. Book Two, the Subtle Knife, introduces Will, another independent, fearless young teen who cares for his ill mother near the real Oxford, England in our own world. The story then follows the adventures of Lyra and Will as they meet, acquire the Subtle Knife, search for Will's missing father, and pursue their mysterious mission through a multiplicity of parallel worlds. Meanwhile, multiple, parallel plot threads flesh out Pullman's inverted retake on the traditional stories of Adam and Eve and the war between God and Satan; the narrative pulls the reader along at a furious pace from one powerful, artistically conceived scene to the next. Love in all its forms, mortality, loss, and sacrifice are constant themes, and Pullman's juxtaposition of the familiar and strange reinforces a mood of nostalgic sadness, as when one visits a place of one's childhood many years later. All is wrapped up in the final book, the Amber Spyglass, which is especially intense with its poetic imagery, enormous contrasts in mood (a major portion is devoted to a harrowing journey through the World of the Dead), and supremely ironic plot twists. The ending left me in tears.
The potential fly in the ointment of this great work is Pullman's increasingly open hostility towards religious authority, despite his fascination with Judeo-Christian mythology. For some readers it will be not a fly but an elephant, obscuring Pullman's wisdom in matters of the heart as well as his central, humanistic message -- which, as a follower of Jewish tradition, I interpret as "Tikkun Olam", repair of the world through good deeds. Pullman presents this message in a literal realization of the divine light-filled universe of the Kabbalah, and offers it as a consoling and healing gift to Lyra, Will, and the rest of us (surely all adults) who have been touched by deep loss.