'The Book of Dust Volume One La Belle Sauvage' by Philip Pullman
Malcolm was the landlord's son, an only child...he had friends enough, but he was happiest on his own playing with his daemon Asta in their canoe, which was called La Belle Sauvage.
Malcolm Polstead's life in the pub beside the Thames is safe and happy enough, if uneventful. But during a winter of unceasing rain the forces of science, religion and politics begin to clash, and as the weather rises to a pitch of ferocity, all of Malcolm's certainties are torn asunder.
Finding himself linked to a baby by the name of Lyra, Malcolm is forced to undertake the challenge of his life and to make a dangerous journey that will change him and Lyra for ever...
Twenty-two years after the publication of the ground-breaking His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman returns to this epic parallel world in a masterful new novel: the long-awaited volume one of The Book of Dust.
Set twelve years before the events of His Dark Materials, this is the story of how Lyra Belacqua came to grow up in Jordan College, Oxford. Yet, La Belle Sauvage does not necessarily have to be read in concordance with Pullman's earlier trilogy, but as a stand-alone story: not a prequel, but an equal.
Fans of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass will be no doubt happy to return to Pullman's well-established world of Dust and daemons after such a long wait. For newcomers, this is an epic adventure of survival and rebellion in a world dominated by an oppressive church. Our protagonist is Malcolm, a clever and capable eleven-year-old boy who lives and works at a pub just outside Oxford. I really enjoyed watching Malcolm grow throughout this novel into a brave hero, fighting to protect baby Lyra from those who wish her harm. For me, the book is very much a bildungsroman; the reader sees how Malcolm finds his place as an individual while surrounded by the sinister Consistorial Court of Discipline, "an agency of the Church concerned with heresy and unbelief". The Church is the Magisterium, stamping out ideas it deems heretical, such as scientific research and alternate philosophy, through the CCD and the chilling League of St Alexander, where children turn informants against their parents, teachers, and anyone they don't like.
This image of an all-controlling, uncompromising, totalitarian regime feels very relevant to today's culture of fear. Pullman has chosen a good time to write this story of rebellion; Malcolm is not the only one fighting the Magisterium. Dr Hannah Relf (who made a brief appearance in The Subtle Knife) is a member of a secret government agency called Oakley Street, who, like Malcolm, becomes embroiled in the battle between the higher powers for mastery of the world. Who will be the ultimate authority, religion or science? Particularly in a world where the floodwaters rise to reveal a hidden Albion, a land of fairies and river gods that has long been left forgotten.
Other recurring characters include Lord Asriel with his snow-leopard daemon and Mrs Coulter with her golden-monkey. I have long been trying to work out the symbolism of the golden-monkey, and the closest interpretation I can come to is that it is a trickster. Since daemons are outward animal representations of the human soul, but also characters in their own right, the golden monkey has proved problematic for me. Furthermore, this work presents an even more problematic human-daemon relationship in the form of the villainous Gerard Bonneville and his hyena. Good luck deciphering what is going on with that pair!
The title of the work is similarly tricky. The translation of la belle sauvage is 'wild beautiful'. Malcolm's boat is itself beautiful - I liked the detail of how Malcolm looks after his boat - and is able to carry Malcolm, his daemon Asta, Alice and her daemon Ben, Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon safely through the floodwaters. Once they have completed their quest of getting Lyra to safety, however, the boat falls apart. I believe that this represents the idea that the world is far too big and splendid to be entirely understood by anyone. Malcolm does his best to navigate the rising tide of intrigue, fear and violence just as well as he navigates the flood.
My apologies if this particular blog post is a bit haphazard. La Belle Sauvage is an incredible work with so much going for it. There are realist details (look out for the anti-clockwise screws!), which give the fantasy elements a grounding in the mundane, similar to what Tolkien did with the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings and what C. S. Lewis did in The Chronicles of Narnia. Pullman is following in a great tradition of fantasy writers through constructing his fictional universe: think Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Pratchett's Discworld. His attention to religion, freedom, authority, politics, and subterfuge turn La Belle Sauvage into a gripping thriller. There are references to Arthurian legends, Homer's Odyssey, Milton's Paradise Lost; so much is going on here. Personally, I was overjoyed to return to "Lyra's Oxford", and I think many people will happily enjoy this adventure, and hopefully find much more to say about it than I have here.
Fans of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass will be no doubt happy to return to Pullman's well-established world of Dust and daemons after such a long wait. For newcomers, this is an epic adventure of survival and rebellion in a world dominated by an oppressive church. Our protagonist is Malcolm, a clever and capable eleven-year-old boy who lives and works at a pub just outside Oxford. I really enjoyed watching Malcolm grow throughout this novel into a brave hero, fighting to protect baby Lyra from those who wish her harm. For me, the book is very much a bildungsroman; the reader sees how Malcolm finds his place as an individual while surrounded by the sinister Consistorial Court of Discipline, "an agency of the Church concerned with heresy and unbelief". The Church is the Magisterium, stamping out ideas it deems heretical, such as scientific research and alternate philosophy, through the CCD and the chilling League of St Alexander, where children turn informants against their parents, teachers, and anyone they don't like.
This image of an all-controlling, uncompromising, totalitarian regime feels very relevant to today's culture of fear. Pullman has chosen a good time to write this story of rebellion; Malcolm is not the only one fighting the Magisterium. Dr Hannah Relf (who made a brief appearance in The Subtle Knife) is a member of a secret government agency called Oakley Street, who, like Malcolm, becomes embroiled in the battle between the higher powers for mastery of the world. Who will be the ultimate authority, religion or science? Particularly in a world where the floodwaters rise to reveal a hidden Albion, a land of fairies and river gods that has long been left forgotten.
Other recurring characters include Lord Asriel with his snow-leopard daemon and Mrs Coulter with her golden-monkey. I have long been trying to work out the symbolism of the golden-monkey, and the closest interpretation I can come to is that it is a trickster. Since daemons are outward animal representations of the human soul, but also characters in their own right, the golden monkey has proved problematic for me. Furthermore, this work presents an even more problematic human-daemon relationship in the form of the villainous Gerard Bonneville and his hyena. Good luck deciphering what is going on with that pair!
The title of the work is similarly tricky. The translation of la belle sauvage is 'wild beautiful'. Malcolm's boat is itself beautiful - I liked the detail of how Malcolm looks after his boat - and is able to carry Malcolm, his daemon Asta, Alice and her daemon Ben, Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon safely through the floodwaters. Once they have completed their quest of getting Lyra to safety, however, the boat falls apart. I believe that this represents the idea that the world is far too big and splendid to be entirely understood by anyone. Malcolm does his best to navigate the rising tide of intrigue, fear and violence just as well as he navigates the flood.
My apologies if this particular blog post is a bit haphazard. La Belle Sauvage is an incredible work with so much going for it. There are realist details (look out for the anti-clockwise screws!), which give the fantasy elements a grounding in the mundane, similar to what Tolkien did with the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings and what C. S. Lewis did in The Chronicles of Narnia. Pullman is following in a great tradition of fantasy writers through constructing his fictional universe: think Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Pratchett's Discworld. His attention to religion, freedom, authority, politics, and subterfuge turn La Belle Sauvage into a gripping thriller. There are references to Arthurian legends, Homer's Odyssey, Milton's Paradise Lost; so much is going on here. Personally, I was overjoyed to return to "Lyra's Oxford", and I think many people will happily enjoy this adventure, and hopefully find much more to say about it than I have here.
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