Imaginatorium of Icebears, Bitches, and Daemons
Daniel Finn, Keenan Blough, Lizzie Ruprecht, Lucas Wakefield, & Paul Norwood
Our group, Daniel Finn, Keenan Blough, Lizzie Ruprecht, Lucas Wakefield, and Paul Norwood, chose to read His Dark Materials (otherwise known as the Golden Compass), by Philip Pullman for our second binge. As reading material, we would say that the novel wasn’t dark and glum at all, but actually rather exciting, filled with magical twists and turns. We binged on the novel for three days with every day consisting of one two hour group binge, as well as a four hour individual binge. The photo above shows us during one of our group binges. Some of us chose to read the book in the physical, while Lucas and Paul downloaded the book on an iPad and a Kindle. The picture shows our group on our first group binge, where we began reading the book from the beginning with Lizzie reading out loud as we read along with her.
The plot focused in on a young girl named Lyra. The people of this world are similar to the people of our world, but with a few major differences such as daemons. People have animals who stay by their sides all of the time, and are really a materialized version of that human’s soul. Lyra is a child, who’s daemon’s name is Pantalaimon. Because she is a child, her daemon changes rapidly between physical states with Lyra’s active, childlike imagination.
So through the text, Keenan found a deeper meaning in Lyra’s shift away from childhood. Lyra transitions out of her childhood home, Jordan College, and starts living with a delicate, classy woman named Ms. Coulter- who she later finds out is evil-and even later finds out is her mother. Before moving out of Jordan College, Lyra felt strongly connected to Lord Asriel (who is later revealed to be her father). Keenan’s deeper realization amounted from a relationship he recalled on the topic of Freudian psychology. Freud used the term, "feminine Oedipus attitude," to describe his theory of psychosexual development where a girl feels closer to her father, but when she hits adolescence, is pulled to her mother- just like Lyra is pulled to the feminine attributes of Ms. Coulter.
Lizzie saw another deeper meaning in the book that had to do with the human soul. In the book, a daemon was the physical embodiment of the person’s innermost soul. The small creatures act on behalf of their designated human’s emotion, and if that human is a child, like Lyra, the daemon has the ability to shapeshift. These daemons interact with other daemon’s in ways that mirror what is going on underneath a conversation- so “reading between the lines” type of deal. This seems to actually take place in real life, and Pullman’s fictitious depiction of this accurately portrays the depth of human emotions as well as relationships in an inspiring and creative way.
In a class discussion, we found that in many groups a group conscious comes about which dictates how each member feels about the book. This did not seem to be the case in our group. Some group members really enjoyed the plot, while others thought it to be a rudimentary narrative, obviously aimed at young adults. Regardless, we thought that we could all feel a type of sensory deprivation while we were engrossed in the book. While one group member read and we followed along and zoned out of reality, and into another imaginary realm, rarely looking up as people passed by our circle of bean bags in the back of the Guilford College Hege Library.
The book seemed to stir our imaginations and empathy. Lyra seemed to bring many of us back to our own childhoods when we would “make war” between friends. We felt empathetically drawn to understand her, and clearly remembered when the thoughts and feelings she expressed were our reality. Regardless of who the novel was aimed at, it seemed to have a nostalgic quality, bringing us back to the days when active imagination was our everyday life. Because of these qualities of imagining, this binge engaged our minds in a way the previous binge (TV watching) did not appear to do. We found that this childlike imagination was activated in the book where watching TV was more of a passive activity.
Photos (click for links)
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