The Golden Compass

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In his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde writes “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.” Books themselves are not inherently immoral. They are non-living objects into which the author and the reader puts meaning. While a reader or group of readers may consider a book moral or immoral, one should not base their choice to read a book on that factor. Authors create characters in their books with a certain level of morality, however, that morality does not always reflect the author’s view. What truly defines a “good” book is how the book is written, not the moral messages that it conveys. This quote means that one source cannot judge whether a book is moral or immoral because …show more content…
This book features a protagonist named Lyra, a child whose goal is to go to the North and save both her best friend and her father. Throughout the book, she lies, steals, and eavesdrops to her heart’s content. While she is an inquisitive child, she often appears far older than her eleven years. Judging the entire book off of Lyra’s moral character or the character of those around her is impossible due to the complexity of the book. This book is full of social commentary and criticisms of everything from government to religion to how adults treat children. Pullman writes about these subjects in metaphors that he expertly crafts and skillful characterization of humans to witches to polar bears, making the entire trilogy a “well-written” …show more content…
While the relationship between Bella and Edward is far from moral, it does not aim to convert readers of the books to following that particular model of relationship. Bella and Edward often treat each other violently throughout the series and neither are completely loyal in their relationship. Critics of Stephenie Meyer call the Twilight series “badly written” books. She did not spend much time on character development, the plot has holes in it, and the book is full of grammatical errors. This proves that even if a book does not aim to give moral commentary, it does not necessarily constitute a “well-written”
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