Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
RHCP Digital (2017), Edition: 01, 546 pages
Description
When Malcolm finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust, he finds himself embroiled in a tale of intrigue featuring enforcement agents from the Magisterium, a woman with an evil monkey daemon, and a baby named Lyra.
Media reviews
I recognize that my expectations are impossibly high and that, in literature as well as in romance, you cannot return to the exact feeling you had before. I’d like to think that Pullman is biding his time, laying down the groundwork for what is yet to come.
And even with its longueurs, the book
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is full of wonder. [...] It’s a stunning achievement, the universe Pullman has created and continues to build on. All that remains is to sit tight and wait for the next installment. Show Less
The Greeks permeate his writing. Like Odysseus, his new hero, Malcolm, is on a self-appointed quest, fighting off enemies from his boat. (He’s also very unlike Odysseus, being 11 years old, ginger-haired and partial, like Pullman, to woodworking and meat pies.) “The Book of Dust” has other
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touchstones too: William Blake, the occult, ancient civilizations, East Asia and a eight-minute piece by Borodin called “In the Steppes of Central Asia.” Most of all, Edmund Spenser’s epic, 16th-century allegory, “The Faerie Queene.” Pullman copies the structure of “The Faerie Queene” — strange encounter after strange encounter — but thankfully not its style. When I admitted how I had struggled with the countless pages of archaic verse, Pullman shouted, gleeful, from his seat: “So did I! Couldn’t read it. Couldn’t read it at all until I was doing this.” His own novel is more readable, and earthier, locked into reality by character and geography, Malcolm and Oxford. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member thelibraryladies
This is going to be such a hard review to write! Not only do I have drastically mixed opinions of this book, but there’s just no escaping the fact that there is no way I can be completely objective about this. As I was reading it, my husband looked over and asked about the strange smile on my
But. I did have qualms, and I think through these I was able to take off the nostalgia glasses long enough to be able to analyze the book as much outside of its connection to this beloved trilogy as I can. Here we go!
Set eleven or so years before the events of “The Golden Compass,” this is the story of Malcolm, an 11 year old boy whose family owns and operates an inn called the “Trout.” Malcolm is everything we expect from young heroic boys: smart, resourceful, and kind. If you look up the actual definition of “boy scout,” I’m pretty sure it would say “See the character of Malcolm from Philip Pullman’s “La Belle Sauvage.”
Other than caring for his beloved canoe (the name of which is where the title of the book comes from), his main duties in life are avoiding the acerbic teenager Alice who works as a dishwasher at the inn, and helping a group of nuns who live in a priory nearby. Until, that is, a mysterious baby girl named Lyra appears in the nuns’ care. Now, devoted to Lyra, Malcolm finds himself caught up in a cold war between two powerful parties both looking to determine Lyra’s future (or whether she should have one at all). Fleeing the disturbed man named Bonneville and his even more disturbing daemon, a three legged hyena, who have their own designs on the baby, Malcolm, Alice and Lyra flee during a massive flood, looking for safety and a future for this small, but important, girl.
First with the simple parts of my review. Obviously, Pullman is still the incredible author we all knew him to be. His writing is clear, concise, and compelling. While the story starts out slowly, this, too, that fans of this author should have been expecting. “The Golden Compass” itself isn’t known to have a bang of a start. And once the flood takes place, the action picks up to almost a frantic pace, changing dramatically into an almost “Odyssey” like tale with Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra drifting from one mystical and dangerous island to another. This aspect of the story was a complete surprise to me, and I very much enjoyed the entire sequence and the various types of magical elements that these scenes added to Lyra’s world.
Further, his main character, Malcolm, is a strong addition to the cast. This was probably the biggest challenge: how do you create a new child hero that will hold his own when compared to Lyra and Will, and notably not be the same as either of those two characters? Malcolm has much of Will’s earnestness and good will, and, if Will’s childhood hadn’t been flooded with the darkness it was, he and Malcolm may have turned into very similar boys. Malcolm is essentially the result of a good childhood and good parents. In some ways he could be read as a bit one dimensional in this goodness, but as the story progress, specifically the last half of the story, his character is tried and tested enough that I think he can avoid this accusation. Malcolm confronts real horrors and real choices, and while he holds true to his “boy scout” mentality, he is also clearly very much changed by the end of the story.
The second biggest hurdle faced by Pullman was how to handle characters we are all familiar with from the first trilogy. It would be all to easy for these known characters to overwhelm a story like this and wash out the new characters being introduced. For the most part, I think he handled this very well. The cameo appearance of many of these character were like bright jewels to run into, but at the same time, I was satisfied enough with the main story not to crave their absence. There were a few moments, like a very brief scene with Mrs. Coulter, that I felt verged a bit too close to fan service for my taste. Was it really necessary to this story that she appear on the page? But these are pretty minor quibbles, and I thought Pullman mostly avoided any pitfalls in this area.
Now, my concerns. There are two that really stand out: Bonneville as a villain and the aspects of the story caught up in him, and Alice’s character and role in this story. We’ll start with Bonneville as I think he leads nicely to my second point.
Bonneville is introduced as a criminal with a pretty nasty past, one specifically dealing with his imprisonment for some type of sexual crime that Mrs. Coulter testified against. So, we can make some assumptions there. Then, throughout this story, we see Bonneville terrorizing and coercing the women around him, notably Alice and a few of the nuns. And towards the end of the story, this culminates in a very horrible way.
Look, Bonneville himself, and his creepy hyena, were scary villains. They served their purpose as a persistent and unpredictable terror following close behind the children. But the fact that his danger is tied up in sexual violence read as strange, especially with regards to the choices made with Alice’s role in the plot, and, more importantly, with all of the work Pullman did in his first trilogy to reclaim the importance of the body and to write strong, complex female characters.
At one point, early in their flight, Alice accuses Malcolm of only bringing her along to change the diapers of Lyra. And, in the end, this is most all she does. She’s clearly a smart and competent character, but she is given very little to do in this story other than care for Lyra and wait while Malcolm saves the day (repeatedly). Which all just makes the sexual violence towards the end all the more disturbing and off putting.
I’m not sure exactly how this trilogy is planned to play out, but I read somewhere that at least one of the next books will deal with Lyra as an adult. If that’s the case, are Malcolm and Alice only the main characters here? And if that’s the case, this last violent scene plays all the worse. I’m not convinced it is necessary, other than to push Malcolm into action (won’t go into that aspect of it, just look up “fridging female characters” and you’ll get my point), and I’m worried that it will be left as is, with no real followup in subsequent stories.
Ultimately, the whole thing was just confusing to me. Why was this choice made? What purpose was it serving? And, from an author like Pullman who gave us such excellent characters as Lyra and Mary Malone, why was Alice written so simplistically and then, even worse, combined with these story choices? I honestly can’t understand it.
As I said at the top, I closed this book with some very mixed feelings. I can’t help but love the fact that there’s a new entry into this world, and I very much enjoyed Malcolm and much of the action of this story. And there’s never an argument to be had about Pullman’s mastery of writing. But some of the choices with the villain and the themes brought up with him were very unsettling. What’s more, the original trilogy simply had more to say. And very little of that philosophical underpinning can be found in this book, leaving us only with a very gruesome and largely unaddressed sexual violence theme. But, obviously, I’ll be back for the next to in the series, and hopefully some of this book’s action will be addressed there. And if not, hopefully Pullman will once again find his footing with the larger questions that made the first trilogy so fascinating.
If you’re fa fan of his first series, I don’t even need to tell you to check this out, because I’m sure you will. If you’re a new reader, I strongly recommend reading the fist trilogy before picking this up; not only is it much better, but it provides much needed context for a lot of what is presented in this book.
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face and the only way I could explain it (yes, he is one of those rare individuals who hasn’t read the “His Dark Materials” trilogy) was to compare it to reading a new Harry Potter book. It’s something you never thought would happen, so much so that you gave up wishing for it, and yet, one day, it arrives on your step and you’re once again back in this magical world, and more than than, you’re back to when you were a kid reading the series for the first time. The only word to describe the entire experience is “surreal.”But. I did have qualms, and I think through these I was able to take off the nostalgia glasses long enough to be able to analyze the book as much outside of its connection to this beloved trilogy as I can. Here we go!
Set eleven or so years before the events of “The Golden Compass,” this is the story of Malcolm, an 11 year old boy whose family owns and operates an inn called the “Trout.” Malcolm is everything we expect from young heroic boys: smart, resourceful, and kind. If you look up the actual definition of “boy scout,” I’m pretty sure it would say “See the character of Malcolm from Philip Pullman’s “La Belle Sauvage.”
Other than caring for his beloved canoe (the name of which is where the title of the book comes from), his main duties in life are avoiding the acerbic teenager Alice who works as a dishwasher at the inn, and helping a group of nuns who live in a priory nearby. Until, that is, a mysterious baby girl named Lyra appears in the nuns’ care. Now, devoted to Lyra, Malcolm finds himself caught up in a cold war between two powerful parties both looking to determine Lyra’s future (or whether she should have one at all). Fleeing the disturbed man named Bonneville and his even more disturbing daemon, a three legged hyena, who have their own designs on the baby, Malcolm, Alice and Lyra flee during a massive flood, looking for safety and a future for this small, but important, girl.
First with the simple parts of my review. Obviously, Pullman is still the incredible author we all knew him to be. His writing is clear, concise, and compelling. While the story starts out slowly, this, too, that fans of this author should have been expecting. “The Golden Compass” itself isn’t known to have a bang of a start. And once the flood takes place, the action picks up to almost a frantic pace, changing dramatically into an almost “Odyssey” like tale with Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra drifting from one mystical and dangerous island to another. This aspect of the story was a complete surprise to me, and I very much enjoyed the entire sequence and the various types of magical elements that these scenes added to Lyra’s world.
Further, his main character, Malcolm, is a strong addition to the cast. This was probably the biggest challenge: how do you create a new child hero that will hold his own when compared to Lyra and Will, and notably not be the same as either of those two characters? Malcolm has much of Will’s earnestness and good will, and, if Will’s childhood hadn’t been flooded with the darkness it was, he and Malcolm may have turned into very similar boys. Malcolm is essentially the result of a good childhood and good parents. In some ways he could be read as a bit one dimensional in this goodness, but as the story progress, specifically the last half of the story, his character is tried and tested enough that I think he can avoid this accusation. Malcolm confronts real horrors and real choices, and while he holds true to his “boy scout” mentality, he is also clearly very much changed by the end of the story.
The second biggest hurdle faced by Pullman was how to handle characters we are all familiar with from the first trilogy. It would be all to easy for these known characters to overwhelm a story like this and wash out the new characters being introduced. For the most part, I think he handled this very well. The cameo appearance of many of these character were like bright jewels to run into, but at the same time, I was satisfied enough with the main story not to crave their absence. There were a few moments, like a very brief scene with Mrs. Coulter, that I felt verged a bit too close to fan service for my taste. Was it really necessary to this story that she appear on the page? But these are pretty minor quibbles, and I thought Pullman mostly avoided any pitfalls in this area.
Now, my concerns. There are two that really stand out: Bonneville as a villain and the aspects of the story caught up in him, and Alice’s character and role in this story. We’ll start with Bonneville as I think he leads nicely to my second point.
Bonneville is introduced as a criminal with a pretty nasty past, one specifically dealing with his imprisonment for some type of sexual crime that Mrs. Coulter testified against. So, we can make some assumptions there. Then, throughout this story, we see Bonneville terrorizing and coercing the women around him, notably Alice and a few of the nuns. And towards the end of the story, this culminates in a very horrible way.
Look, Bonneville himself, and his creepy hyena, were scary villains. They served their purpose as a persistent and unpredictable terror following close behind the children. But the fact that his danger is tied up in sexual violence read as strange, especially with regards to the choices made with Alice’s role in the plot, and, more importantly, with all of the work Pullman did in his first trilogy to reclaim the importance of the body and to write strong, complex female characters.
At one point, early in their flight, Alice accuses Malcolm of only bringing her along to change the diapers of Lyra. And, in the end, this is most all she does. She’s clearly a smart and competent character, but she is given very little to do in this story other than care for Lyra and wait while Malcolm saves the day (repeatedly). Which all just makes the sexual violence towards the end all the more disturbing and off putting.
I’m not sure exactly how this trilogy is planned to play out, but I read somewhere that at least one of the next books will deal with Lyra as an adult. If that’s the case, are Malcolm and Alice only the main characters here? And if that’s the case, this last violent scene plays all the worse. I’m not convinced it is necessary, other than to push Malcolm into action (won’t go into that aspect of it, just look up “fridging female characters” and you’ll get my point), and I’m worried that it will be left as is, with no real followup in subsequent stories.
Ultimately, the whole thing was just confusing to me. Why was this choice made? What purpose was it serving? And, from an author like Pullman who gave us such excellent characters as Lyra and Mary Malone, why was Alice written so simplistically and then, even worse, combined with these story choices? I honestly can’t understand it.
As I said at the top, I closed this book with some very mixed feelings. I can’t help but love the fact that there’s a new entry into this world, and I very much enjoyed Malcolm and much of the action of this story. And there’s never an argument to be had about Pullman’s mastery of writing. But some of the choices with the villain and the themes brought up with him were very unsettling. What’s more, the original trilogy simply had more to say. And very little of that philosophical underpinning can be found in this book, leaving us only with a very gruesome and largely unaddressed sexual violence theme. But, obviously, I’ll be back for the next to in the series, and hopefully some of this book’s action will be addressed there. And if not, hopefully Pullman will once again find his footing with the larger questions that made the first trilogy so fascinating.
If you’re fa fan of his first series, I don’t even need to tell you to check this out, because I’m sure you will. If you’re a new reader, I strongly recommend reading the fist trilogy before picking this up; not only is it much better, but it provides much needed context for a lot of what is presented in this book.
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LibraryThing member JBD1
A very good first volume of this new "prequel" trilogy from Pullman; I had trouble putting it down, and much regretted starting it before a very busy week at work since I found myself just wanting to be at home, reading. (If that isn't saying it's an engaging book, I don't know what would).
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Excellent world-building and ground-laying for what's to come; I will await the next with impatience. Show Less
LibraryThing member b.masonjudy
Book 1 of the Book of Dust was thrilling, in parts, but overall felt a tad lopsided. Perhaps the character development based around the nunnery and the Trout will come to fruition in later volumes. However, as a standalone work I do wish Pullman had focused more on the flood and developing the
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incidents with the fairies and other English mythology and illuminated Malcolm's character and his arc more in these episodes. I mean, how many times did he have Malcolm just serving tables?! Show Less
LibraryThing member hskey
His Dark Materials (Golden Compass, Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass) is one of my all time favorite things, never mind books. Pullman is a terrific writer and so hearing about a prequel series to something as revered as the Golden Compass had me nervous; I always think I want more of a series, but
Within the first few pages, I felt the magic creep back to when I was 12 years old and reading GC for the first time. There's elements of danger, comfort and wonder that is so difficult to craft that you can't help but marvel at Pullman's talent. You WANT to be at the Trout, you want to have your very own daemon, you want to exist in this world. Malcolm is a fantastic protagonist and found myself rooting for him the entire way.
However, largely due to my sky high expectations and unavoidable comparisons to His Dark Materials, I'm giving this a 3. It's a harsh 3, but the 2nd half of the book really took a nosedive in terms of pacing and interest from me. Some sections are borderline bizarre, and I really wish I'd waited until the 2nd and 3rd book came out so I don't have to wait to satiate my desire to read more. Some parts are easily 5/5's and are well above some books I've rated 4 or 5 stars, but overall I'll give it a 3 and eager anticipate the next book.
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it doesn't always work out so well. Within the first few pages, I felt the magic creep back to when I was 12 years old and reading GC for the first time. There's elements of danger, comfort and wonder that is so difficult to craft that you can't help but marvel at Pullman's talent. You WANT to be at the Trout, you want to have your very own daemon, you want to exist in this world. Malcolm is a fantastic protagonist and found myself rooting for him the entire way.
However, largely due to my sky high expectations and unavoidable comparisons to His Dark Materials, I'm giving this a 3. It's a harsh 3, but the 2nd half of the book really took a nosedive in terms of pacing and interest from me. Some sections are borderline bizarre, and I really wish I'd waited until the 2nd and 3rd book came out so I don't have to wait to satiate my desire to read more. Some parts are easily 5/5's and are well above some books I've rated 4 or 5 stars, but overall I'll give it a 3 and eager anticipate the next book.
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LibraryThing member reading_fox
Lyra's prequel. I had expected this to be a trilogy, but it seems to be complete as it is. Enjoyable and well written as it is, it retcons the world slightly (something prequels should avoid!) and doesn't add anything to the controversy the original series provoked.
Lyra herself of course doesn't
Much of the opening plot works well enough, but once on the river/flood I was far less accepting. Malcolm and his companion have all sorts of adventures meeting various instances of the britsh fairy/folk culture. There is nothing in Lyra's world to suggest why or how such being exist, where they came from, or where they went after Malcom passes them by. I dislike such sloppy world-building that could easily have been circumvented by passing into other worlds (this does not explicitly happen). There's also a ridiculously persistent antagonist who seems killed several times, only to re-appear further downstream. There's no explanation for there extended life, nor any hint that they are simply a metaphor of Malcom's mind. Sadly the daemons do little. Being mostly with children they're free to shift to narratively convenient forms at will, but little joy or spark in their conversations.
Interesting but doesn't have the same complexity that made the originals so good.
Lyra herself of course doesn't
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feature - she was delivered to Jordon college as babe at arms during a great flood, and this is the tale of how that came to be. (I can't remember if this was actually stated in the originals or merely an invention of the TV series, either way it is now canon). So instead we have Malcolm, a young boy living in a prosperous pub the Trout, on the banks of the Thames, in Lyra's world. Malcolm's not a bad lad, and his parents are loving, so whilst he works hard, he also has a lot of time to chat to customers and explore the surrounding countryside. He learns that the priory on the other bank are looking after a baby girl in some secrecy which is amazing to him, as how would grey old nuns know anything about raising a child? He's also confused that they are of the same Church as another faction which are seeking this baby. These others seem cruel to him, and so when the Gyptians warn him that the Thames is flooding like it's never flooded before he manages to rescue the baby and flee in his kayak - the Belle Sauvage of the title.Much of the opening plot works well enough, but once on the river/flood I was far less accepting. Malcolm and his companion have all sorts of adventures meeting various instances of the britsh fairy/folk culture. There is nothing in Lyra's world to suggest why or how such being exist, where they came from, or where they went after Malcom passes them by. I dislike such sloppy world-building that could easily have been circumvented by passing into other worlds (this does not explicitly happen). There's also a ridiculously persistent antagonist who seems killed several times, only to re-appear further downstream. There's no explanation for there extended life, nor any hint that they are simply a metaphor of Malcom's mind. Sadly the daemons do little. Being mostly with children they're free to shift to narratively convenient forms at will, but little joy or spark in their conversations.
Interesting but doesn't have the same complexity that made the originals so good.
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LibraryThing member overthemoon
The young son of the owners of the Trout near Oxford and a kitchen maid save the baby Lyra from her pursuers (Church, police, conspirators) and take her to sanctuary in Jordan college, battling against a momentous flood in a canoe. It's very exciting and is over too soon. (The book is thick but
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light in weight, with a large typeface and uncomplicated text.) I liked the mix of familiar, faery and fantasy. When I reached the end I re-read Lyra's Oxford and am tempted to pick up His Dark Materials again, as a year is too long to wait for the next volume. On the title page of La Belle Sauvage is an embossed raven - found him again at the beginning of Lyra's Oxford. Show Less
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
I came to Philip Pullman’s novels with a certain scepticism, having been told by my niece how marvellous they were, and how they weren’t really children’s books at all. I was wone over within the first few pages of Northern Lights, the opening volume of Pullman’s enchanting His Dark
This latest novel is the opening volume in a new trilogy, The Book of Dust, that will stand as a prequel or companion series to the original books, and its publication was heralded with considerable hype. I did wonder whether it would prove to be an egregious exercise in cashing in on a successful ‘brand’, but seeing a copy ion my local bookstore I decided to take a punt. Despite having found myself disappointed in similar scenarios before, on this occasion I chose wisely.
The story is immediately absorbing, and the principal protagonist, Malcolm Polstead, is both utterly plausible and totally engaging. He lives in The Trout Inn in Oxford. Not quite our Oxford, but a very similar Oxford located in a parallel universe where history and technology have run along slightly different lines to those of our world. Everyone has a daemon, a sort of spiritual parent which takes the form of an animal. Children’s daemons can change shape, settling into a permanent format during their early teens.
Malcolm is a bright and honest boy, spending his free time, when he is not at school or helping his parents in the inn, either sailing his canoe, La Belle Sauvage, up and down the Thames or helping the nuns in the nearby Godstow Priory. During one of his visits to the Priory he becomes aware of the presence of a baby girl called Lyra who is being looked after by the nuns. He gradually becomes aware from conversations overheard in the pub that the baby has attracted a lot of interest, not all of it benign. Various groups of people are looking for the baby, and the nuns are concerned for her (and their own) safety.
Pullman’s style immediately draws the reader in, and despite the differences between that world and our own (all of which must be deliciously thought provoking for younger readers), one is instantly engrossed. The plot develops steadily, and covers a broad base. Pullman is an acute observer, and knows how children and young adults behave, and creates a frighteningly plausible organisation that is not dissimilar to the Hitler Youth, with members being encouraged to spy on their family and friends, even turning in their parents for stepping out of line.
My one concern about the book was that the ending seemed rather sudden. After building up very steadily, it seemed suddenly to be over, as if the author had misjudged the time available to him before a publishing deadline. I recognise that this might simply reflect the fact that it is one volume in a trilogy, but it came as a slight surprise. That is, however, a minor cavil, and the book was very enjoyable.
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Materials trilogy. The wealth of imagination that the story displayed, and the scope for wonder and investigation were considerable, and I readily agreed that my niece was right – they are not specifically children’s books. Pullman writes in a style that is clear and immediately accessible, but without any hint of dumbing down.This latest novel is the opening volume in a new trilogy, The Book of Dust, that will stand as a prequel or companion series to the original books, and its publication was heralded with considerable hype. I did wonder whether it would prove to be an egregious exercise in cashing in on a successful ‘brand’, but seeing a copy ion my local bookstore I decided to take a punt. Despite having found myself disappointed in similar scenarios before, on this occasion I chose wisely.
The story is immediately absorbing, and the principal protagonist, Malcolm Polstead, is both utterly plausible and totally engaging. He lives in The Trout Inn in Oxford. Not quite our Oxford, but a very similar Oxford located in a parallel universe where history and technology have run along slightly different lines to those of our world. Everyone has a daemon, a sort of spiritual parent which takes the form of an animal. Children’s daemons can change shape, settling into a permanent format during their early teens.
Malcolm is a bright and honest boy, spending his free time, when he is not at school or helping his parents in the inn, either sailing his canoe, La Belle Sauvage, up and down the Thames or helping the nuns in the nearby Godstow Priory. During one of his visits to the Priory he becomes aware of the presence of a baby girl called Lyra who is being looked after by the nuns. He gradually becomes aware from conversations overheard in the pub that the baby has attracted a lot of interest, not all of it benign. Various groups of people are looking for the baby, and the nuns are concerned for her (and their own) safety.
Pullman’s style immediately draws the reader in, and despite the differences between that world and our own (all of which must be deliciously thought provoking for younger readers), one is instantly engrossed. The plot develops steadily, and covers a broad base. Pullman is an acute observer, and knows how children and young adults behave, and creates a frighteningly plausible organisation that is not dissimilar to the Hitler Youth, with members being encouraged to spy on their family and friends, even turning in their parents for stepping out of line.
My one concern about the book was that the ending seemed rather sudden. After building up very steadily, it seemed suddenly to be over, as if the author had misjudged the time available to him before a publishing deadline. I recognise that this might simply reflect the fact that it is one volume in a trilogy, but it came as a slight surprise. That is, however, a minor cavil, and the book was very enjoyable.
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LibraryThing member Charlotte1162
Absolutely bloody loved it!
LibraryThing member quondame
Interesting and good new characters, lots of decent plotting until the endless canoe ride with loaded with violent and inexplicable event but somewhat lacking in narrative urgency.
LibraryThing member froxgirl
If you haven't read or listened to (the BEST!) the Dark Materials Trilogy, stop here. I am in awe of Phillip Pullman, of every word, feeling, character, setting, punctuation mark - I believe him to be the equal of Tolkien and CS Lewis (and, I suppose, JK Rowling, but I've only read two). Now I'm
Quotes (should be the entire book): "The peacocks occasionally lifted their heads to utter ferocious and meaningless screams."
"Nothing is just anything."
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going to go back and reread the earlier trilogy while I wait to see what the second book brings. MARVELOUS!Quotes (should be the entire book): "The peacocks occasionally lifted their heads to utter ferocious and meaningless screams."
"Nothing is just anything."
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LibraryThing member flashflood42
Someone else's great review: This is going to be such a hard review to write! Not only do I have drastically mixed opinions of this book, but there’s just no escaping the fact that there is no way I can be completely objective about this. As I was reading it, my husband looked over and asked
But. I did have qualms, and I think through these I was able to take off the nostalgia glasses long enough to be able to analyze the book as much outside of its connection to this beloved trilogy as I can. Here we go!
Set eleven or so years before the events of “The Golden Compass,” this is the story of Malcolm, an 11 year old boy whose family owns and operates an inn called the “Trout.” Malcolm is everything we expect from young heroic boys: smart, resourceful, and kind. If you look up the actual definition of “boy scout,” I’m pretty sure it would say “See the character of Malcolm from Philip Pullman’s “La Belle Sauvage.”
Other than caring for his beloved canoe (the name of which is where the title of the book comes from), his main duties in life are avoiding the acerbic teenager Alice who works as a dishwasher at the inn, and helping a group of nuns who live in a priory nearby. Until, that is, a mysterious baby girl named Lyra appears in the nuns’ care. Now, devoted to Lyra, Malcolm finds himself caught up in a cold war between two powerful parties both looking to determine Lyra’s future (or whether she should have one at all). Fleeing the disturbed man named Bonneville and his even more disturbing daemon, a three legged hyena, who have their own designs on the baby, Malcolm, Alice and Lyra flee during a massive flood, looking for safety and a future for this small, but important, girl.
First with the simple parts of my review. Obviously, Pullman is still the incredible author we all knew him to be. His writing is clear, concise, and compelling. While the story starts out slowly, this, too, that fans of this author should have been expecting. “The Golden Compass” itself isn’t known to have a bang of a start. And once the flood takes place, the action picks up to almost a frantic pace, changing dramatically into an almost “Odyssey” like tale with Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra drifting from one mystical and dangerous island to another. This aspect of the story was a complete surprise to me, and I very much enjoyed the entire sequence and the various types of magical elements that these scenes added to Lyra’s world.
Further, his main character, Malcolm, is a strong addition to the cast. This was probably the biggest challenge: how do you create a new child hero that will hold his own when compared to Lyra and Will, and notably not be the same as either of those two characters? Malcolm has much of Will’s earnestness and good will, and, if Will’s childhood hadn’t been flooded with the darkness it was, he and Malcolm may have turned into very similar boys. Malcolm is essentially the result of a good childhood and good parents. In some ways he could be read as a bit one dimensional in this goodness, but as the story progress, specifically the last half of the story, his character is tried and tested enough that I think he can avoid this accusation. Malcolm confronts real horrors and real choices, and while he holds true to his “boy scout” mentality, he is also clearly very much changed by the end of the story.
The second biggest hurdle faced by Pullman was how to handle characters we are all familiar with from the first trilogy. It would be all to easy for these known characters to overwhelm a story like this and wash out the new characters being introduced. For the most part, I think he handled this very well. The cameo appearance of many of these character were like bright jewels to run into, but at the same time, I was satisfied enough with the main story not to crave their absence. There were a few moments, like a very brief scene with Mrs. Coulter, that I felt verged a bit too close to fan service for my taste. Was it really necessary to this story that she appear on the page? But these are pretty minor quibbles, and I thought Pullman mostly avoided any pitfalls in this area.
Now, my concerns. There are two that really stand out: Bonneville as a villain and the aspects of the story caught up in him, and Alice’s character and role in this story. We’ll start with Bonneville as I think he leads nicely to my second point.
Bonneville is introduced as a criminal with a pretty nasty past, one specifically dealing with his imprisonment for some type of sexual crime that Mrs. Coulter testified against. So, we can make some assumptions there. Then, throughout this story, we see Bonneville terrorizing and coercing the women around him, notably Alice and a few of the nuns. And towards the end of the story, this culminates in a very horrible way.
Look, Bonneville himself, and his creepy hyena, were scary villains. They served their purpose as a persistent and unpredictable terror following close behind the children. But the fact that his danger is tied up in sexual violence read as strange, especially with regards to the choices made with Alice’s role in the plot, and, more importantly, with all of the work Pullman did in his first trilogy to reclaim the importance of the body and to write strong, complex female characters.
At one point, early in their flight, Alice accuses Malcolm of only bringing her along to change the diapers of Lyra. And, in the end, this is most all she does. She’s clearly a smart and competent character, but she is given very little to do in this story other than care for Lyra and wait while Malcolm saves the day (repeatedly). Which all just makes the sexual violence towards the end all the more disturbing and off putting.
I’m not sure exactly how this trilogy is planned to play out, but I read somewhere that at least one of the next books will deal with Lyra as an adult. If that’s the case, are Malcolm and Alice only the main characters here? And if that’s the case, this last violent scene plays all the worse. I’m not convinced it is necessary, other than to push Malcolm into action (won’t go into that aspect of it, just look up “fridging female characters” and you’ll get my point), and I’m worried that it will be left as is, with no real followup in subsequent stories.
Ultimately, the whole thing was just confusing to me. Why was this choice made? What purpose was it serving? And, from an author like Pullman who gave us such excellent characters as Lyra and Mary Malone, why was Alice written so simplistically and then, even worse, combined with these story choices? I honestly can’t understand it.
As I said at the top, I closed this book with some very mixed feelings. I can’t help but love the fact that there’s a new entry into this world, and I very much enjoyed Malcolm and much of the action of this story. And there’s never an argument to be had about Pullman’s mastery of writing. But some of the choices with the villain and the themes brought up with him were very unsettling. What’s more, the original trilogy simply had more to say. And very little of that philosophical underpinning can be found in this book, leaving us only with a very gruesome and largely unaddressed sexual violence theme. But, obviously, I’ll be back for the next to in the series, and hopefully some of this book’s action will be addressed there. And if not, hopefully Pullman will once again find his footing with the larger questions that made the first trilogy so fascinating.
If you’re fa fan of his first series, I don’t even need to tell you to check this out, because I’m sure you will. If you’re a new reader, I strongly recommend reading the fist trilogy before picking this up; not only is it much better, but it provides much needed context for a lot of what is presented in this book. ( )
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about the strange smile on my face and the only way I could explain it (yes, he is one of those rare individuals who hasn’t read the “His Dark Materials” trilogy) was to compare it to reading a new Harry Potter book. It’s something you never thought would happen, so much so that you gave up wishing for it, and yet, one day, it arrives on your step and you’re once again back in this magical world, and more than than, you’re back to when you were a kid reading the series for the first time. The only word to describe the entire experience is “surreal.”But. I did have qualms, and I think through these I was able to take off the nostalgia glasses long enough to be able to analyze the book as much outside of its connection to this beloved trilogy as I can. Here we go!
Set eleven or so years before the events of “The Golden Compass,” this is the story of Malcolm, an 11 year old boy whose family owns and operates an inn called the “Trout.” Malcolm is everything we expect from young heroic boys: smart, resourceful, and kind. If you look up the actual definition of “boy scout,” I’m pretty sure it would say “See the character of Malcolm from Philip Pullman’s “La Belle Sauvage.”
Other than caring for his beloved canoe (the name of which is where the title of the book comes from), his main duties in life are avoiding the acerbic teenager Alice who works as a dishwasher at the inn, and helping a group of nuns who live in a priory nearby. Until, that is, a mysterious baby girl named Lyra appears in the nuns’ care. Now, devoted to Lyra, Malcolm finds himself caught up in a cold war between two powerful parties both looking to determine Lyra’s future (or whether she should have one at all). Fleeing the disturbed man named Bonneville and his even more disturbing daemon, a three legged hyena, who have their own designs on the baby, Malcolm, Alice and Lyra flee during a massive flood, looking for safety and a future for this small, but important, girl.
First with the simple parts of my review. Obviously, Pullman is still the incredible author we all knew him to be. His writing is clear, concise, and compelling. While the story starts out slowly, this, too, that fans of this author should have been expecting. “The Golden Compass” itself isn’t known to have a bang of a start. And once the flood takes place, the action picks up to almost a frantic pace, changing dramatically into an almost “Odyssey” like tale with Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra drifting from one mystical and dangerous island to another. This aspect of the story was a complete surprise to me, and I very much enjoyed the entire sequence and the various types of magical elements that these scenes added to Lyra’s world.
Further, his main character, Malcolm, is a strong addition to the cast. This was probably the biggest challenge: how do you create a new child hero that will hold his own when compared to Lyra and Will, and notably not be the same as either of those two characters? Malcolm has much of Will’s earnestness and good will, and, if Will’s childhood hadn’t been flooded with the darkness it was, he and Malcolm may have turned into very similar boys. Malcolm is essentially the result of a good childhood and good parents. In some ways he could be read as a bit one dimensional in this goodness, but as the story progress, specifically the last half of the story, his character is tried and tested enough that I think he can avoid this accusation. Malcolm confronts real horrors and real choices, and while he holds true to his “boy scout” mentality, he is also clearly very much changed by the end of the story.
The second biggest hurdle faced by Pullman was how to handle characters we are all familiar with from the first trilogy. It would be all to easy for these known characters to overwhelm a story like this and wash out the new characters being introduced. For the most part, I think he handled this very well. The cameo appearance of many of these character were like bright jewels to run into, but at the same time, I was satisfied enough with the main story not to crave their absence. There were a few moments, like a very brief scene with Mrs. Coulter, that I felt verged a bit too close to fan service for my taste. Was it really necessary to this story that she appear on the page? But these are pretty minor quibbles, and I thought Pullman mostly avoided any pitfalls in this area.
Now, my concerns. There are two that really stand out: Bonneville as a villain and the aspects of the story caught up in him, and Alice’s character and role in this story. We’ll start with Bonneville as I think he leads nicely to my second point.
Bonneville is introduced as a criminal with a pretty nasty past, one specifically dealing with his imprisonment for some type of sexual crime that Mrs. Coulter testified against. So, we can make some assumptions there. Then, throughout this story, we see Bonneville terrorizing and coercing the women around him, notably Alice and a few of the nuns. And towards the end of the story, this culminates in a very horrible way.
Look, Bonneville himself, and his creepy hyena, were scary villains. They served their purpose as a persistent and unpredictable terror following close behind the children. But the fact that his danger is tied up in sexual violence read as strange, especially with regards to the choices made with Alice’s role in the plot, and, more importantly, with all of the work Pullman did in his first trilogy to reclaim the importance of the body and to write strong, complex female characters.
At one point, early in their flight, Alice accuses Malcolm of only bringing her along to change the diapers of Lyra. And, in the end, this is most all she does. She’s clearly a smart and competent character, but she is given very little to do in this story other than care for Lyra and wait while Malcolm saves the day (repeatedly). Which all just makes the sexual violence towards the end all the more disturbing and off putting.
I’m not sure exactly how this trilogy is planned to play out, but I read somewhere that at least one of the next books will deal with Lyra as an adult. If that’s the case, are Malcolm and Alice only the main characters here? And if that’s the case, this last violent scene plays all the worse. I’m not convinced it is necessary, other than to push Malcolm into action (won’t go into that aspect of it, just look up “fridging female characters” and you’ll get my point), and I’m worried that it will be left as is, with no real followup in subsequent stories.
Ultimately, the whole thing was just confusing to me. Why was this choice made? What purpose was it serving? And, from an author like Pullman who gave us such excellent characters as Lyra and Mary Malone, why was Alice written so simplistically and then, even worse, combined with these story choices? I honestly can’t understand it.
As I said at the top, I closed this book with some very mixed feelings. I can’t help but love the fact that there’s a new entry into this world, and I very much enjoyed Malcolm and much of the action of this story. And there’s never an argument to be had about Pullman’s mastery of writing. But some of the choices with the villain and the themes brought up with him were very unsettling. What’s more, the original trilogy simply had more to say. And very little of that philosophical underpinning can be found in this book, leaving us only with a very gruesome and largely unaddressed sexual violence theme. But, obviously, I’ll be back for the next to in the series, and hopefully some of this book’s action will be addressed there. And if not, hopefully Pullman will once again find his footing with the larger questions that made the first trilogy so fascinating.
If you’re fa fan of his first series, I don’t even need to tell you to check this out, because I’m sure you will. If you’re a new reader, I strongly recommend reading the fist trilogy before picking this up; not only is it much better, but it provides much needed context for a lot of what is presented in this book. ( )
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LibraryThing member heidialice
Decades after the publication of His Dark Materials, Pullman returns with the much-anticipated first volume of the prequel series.
In it, Lyra is only a baby, and thus a minor character. Engagingly written, one of Pullman's skills is his world-building, a place just "other" to our own. An engrossing
In it, Lyra is only a baby, and thus a minor character. Engagingly written, one of Pullman's skills is his world-building, a place just "other" to our own. An engrossing
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read, but does feel like the start of a trilogy, and thus leaves the reader hungry for more. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookappeal
This adventurous prequel to Lyra’s story does not suffer one bit from a change in audio narration. Malcolm is a wonderful character, honest and kind, generous with his time and eager to learn everything he can about the world. When he makes a discovery that changes his understanding of people and
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how the world works, Malcolm is forced to start growing up fast. Lyra is just a babe and Malcolm’s first experience with an infant. Their relationship is adorable, especially when it brings Malcolm together with a more contentious personality who also becomes committed to protecting the special child from the multiple forces arrayed against her future. A worthy origin story for Lyra and s pulse-pounding, innovative chase that pushes Malcolm beyond his limits. Show Less
LibraryThing member Figgles
Slightly disappointing on first reading but am prepared to give it another try...
LibraryThing member EBurggraf
didn't like Dark Materials series
LibraryThing member Iira
Such a long time since I read the Dark Materials series! I really miss reading it for the first time. This was a prequel to it, and so will the whole series be. I would maybe have rather read something completely new, but I'll take what I can get. I listened to this as an audiobook and at times
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could not fully concentrate so I couldn't follow as well as I should have. Will try to do better with the next book! Show Less
LibraryThing member electrascaife
11-year-old Malcolm Polstead, son of the keepers of the Trout Inn, along with his trusty canoe, La Belle Sauvage, and a village girl named Alice, find themselves the protectors of the baby Lyra. Unwanted by her mother (the Big Bad of both series) and kept away from her father, Lyra is being hunted
La Belle Sauvage starts off a parallel series to His Dark Materials, and it was so wonderful to be pulled back into that world of daemons and Dust, anbaric cars and alethiometers. A world that's sort of like ours and still very much not, along with Pullman's amazing ability to create characters who within the length of a page become your lifelong friends, make this series - just like the first one - already one of my favorites.
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and pursued by more than one group for various unsavory reasons. Malcolm and Alice rescue her during a supernatural flood and travel in La Belle Sauvage to London in search of her father, encountering all sorts of strange people (both good and bad) and places along the way.La Belle Sauvage starts off a parallel series to His Dark Materials, and it was so wonderful to be pulled back into that world of daemons and Dust, anbaric cars and alethiometers. A world that's sort of like ours and still very much not, along with Pullman's amazing ability to create characters who within the length of a page become your lifelong friends, make this series - just like the first one - already one of my favorites.
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LibraryThing member BillieBook
I'm so happy to be back in Pullman's Brytain and Malcolm s an excellent companion with whom to brave its dangers and wonders.
LibraryThing member jmoncton
LOVED this book! Philip Pullman is incredibly talented at weaving a story. He returns to the world of the Golden Compass with a tale that has a fairy tale quality of being magical and completely engaging. I listened to this in audio and it was fantastic! If you're looking for a story that will fill
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your imagination and completely entertain, this is it! Show Less
LibraryThing member atreic
This is a prequel to Northern Lights, and (unsurprisingly, as I love all things Northern Lights), I enjoyed it. The first half of the book is a lovely look at Oxford life, with Lyra as a baby, and nuns and spies and a young Hannah Relf. I enjoyed it more than the second half, where our heroes are
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swept down the river and end up in an Odyssey-like episodic journey through fantastic encounters. It did read a bit like Northern Lights fanfic, but very good fanfic! Show Less
LibraryThing member fingerpost
In short, this book was a tremendous disappointment. It started promisingly, but went progressively downhill after that.
When I read “The Golden Compass” so many years ago, I was enthralled. Pullman had created an alternate universe that was deeply creative, fascinating, and operated by its own
The second book, “The Subtle Knife,” was excellent, but not up to par with the first volume. I did not get over my disappointment that much of this book took place in our world, instead of the alternate reality world of “The Golden Compass.”
Then came “The Amber Spylgass.” That was terrible. The trilogy ended with nonsensical veerings into alternate worlds so absurd that I found it hard to believe they came from the same author as the brilliant first book. It also seemed by the end to be an almost propaganda like diatribe against religion.
Still, when I saw “La Belle Sauvage,” the first volume in a prequel trilogy, “The Book of Dust.” I had to give it a try. I had high hopes of returning to Lyra's Oxford, dæmons, etc. I was relatively pleased for the first half of the book. Not up to par with The Golden Compass, but at least in the same vein. It opens when Lyra (the young heroine from “The Golden Compass”) was an infant. It is set in the world I so loved from the first book. The story revolves around 11 year old Malcolm and 16 year old Alice trying to save baby Lyra from mysterious agents, perhaps Magesterium, perhaps government, perhaps something else entirely, who want to kidnap her.
Halfway through the book, a flood ensues. As I pictured the descriptions, I could only envision an impossible flood of almost Noah-like proportions. The whole second half of the book takes place as Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra go from place to place in a small canoe, trying escape from any number of pursuers. The further it goes, the more absurd it gets. In the last hundred pages, there are at least three or four encounters that seem completely random, nonsensical, and totally out of place in the world that Pullman created, and by the end of the book, these deeply weird and illogical events and characters don’t even seem to have any significance to the ultimate plot. It felt like Pullman had contracted to write a 450 page book and came up 100 pages short, so he threw in a bunch of irrellevant filler to make the book longer… and not very good filler.
When you reach the end of a book in a trilogy, you should have a sense of conclusion – with a few things to be resolved or continued in the next book; but overall, the book should feel complete. This one did not. It felt, not like the first third of a trilogy, but like the first third of a single large book. Almost nothing was resolved, and as mentioned earlier, many things were left hanging, not just in terms of plot resolution, but even in terms of basic logic and sense.
It should also be noted that unlike “His Dark Materials” this is not really a YA book. The publisher seems to know this, as both the dimensions and price of the hardcover reflect the standards for adult fiction, not YA fiction. The main villain in the book is a sexual predator. There is suggestion of past, and threat of coming sexual assaults both against 16 year old Alice, some nuns, and even a mention – (never brought up again in this volume), of the “good guys” using 11-year-old Malcolm as bait to lure a man with a sexual appetite for young boys. By the end of the book, Malcolm is beginning to have the first hints of sexual longing for his friend Alice, who is 16 to his 11.
I hope that the next two books in the series will make some sense of the events towards the end of the book, but unless I've heard overwhelming positive reviews saying it was a vast improvement on the first book, I won't bother with it. I'm baffled by how many good reviews this one has gotten.
Analogy: Episode 1: Phantom Menace is to Episode 4: A New Hope, as La Belle Sauvage is to The Golden Compass.
When I read “The Golden Compass” so many years ago, I was enthralled. Pullman had created an alternate universe that was deeply creative, fascinating, and operated by its own
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orderly logic. All people had a dæmon, an animal companion which was actually part of the person. A human could not exist without their dæmon. The story was genius.The second book, “The Subtle Knife,” was excellent, but not up to par with the first volume. I did not get over my disappointment that much of this book took place in our world, instead of the alternate reality world of “The Golden Compass.”
Then came “The Amber Spylgass.” That was terrible. The trilogy ended with nonsensical veerings into alternate worlds so absurd that I found it hard to believe they came from the same author as the brilliant first book. It also seemed by the end to be an almost propaganda like diatribe against religion.
Still, when I saw “La Belle Sauvage,” the first volume in a prequel trilogy, “The Book of Dust.” I had to give it a try. I had high hopes of returning to Lyra's Oxford, dæmons, etc. I was relatively pleased for the first half of the book. Not up to par with The Golden Compass, but at least in the same vein. It opens when Lyra (the young heroine from “The Golden Compass”) was an infant. It is set in the world I so loved from the first book. The story revolves around 11 year old Malcolm and 16 year old Alice trying to save baby Lyra from mysterious agents, perhaps Magesterium, perhaps government, perhaps something else entirely, who want to kidnap her.
Halfway through the book, a flood ensues. As I pictured the descriptions, I could only envision an impossible flood of almost Noah-like proportions. The whole second half of the book takes place as Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra go from place to place in a small canoe, trying escape from any number of pursuers. The further it goes, the more absurd it gets. In the last hundred pages, there are at least three or four encounters that seem completely random, nonsensical, and totally out of place in the world that Pullman created, and by the end of the book, these deeply weird and illogical events and characters don’t even seem to have any significance to the ultimate plot. It felt like Pullman had contracted to write a 450 page book and came up 100 pages short, so he threw in a bunch of irrellevant filler to make the book longer… and not very good filler.
When you reach the end of a book in a trilogy, you should have a sense of conclusion – with a few things to be resolved or continued in the next book; but overall, the book should feel complete. This one did not. It felt, not like the first third of a trilogy, but like the first third of a single large book. Almost nothing was resolved, and as mentioned earlier, many things were left hanging, not just in terms of plot resolution, but even in terms of basic logic and sense.
It should also be noted that unlike “His Dark Materials” this is not really a YA book. The publisher seems to know this, as both the dimensions and price of the hardcover reflect the standards for adult fiction, not YA fiction. The main villain in the book is a sexual predator. There is suggestion of past, and threat of coming sexual assaults both against 16 year old Alice, some nuns, and even a mention – (never brought up again in this volume), of the “good guys” using 11-year-old Malcolm as bait to lure a man with a sexual appetite for young boys. By the end of the book, Malcolm is beginning to have the first hints of sexual longing for his friend Alice, who is 16 to his 11.
I hope that the next two books in the series will make some sense of the events towards the end of the book, but unless I've heard overwhelming positive reviews saying it was a vast improvement on the first book, I won't bother with it. I'm baffled by how many good reviews this one has gotten.
Analogy: Episode 1: Phantom Menace is to Episode 4: A New Hope, as La Belle Sauvage is to The Golden Compass.
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LibraryThing member ireneattolia
i was pretty nervous to pick this up since the HDM series was such a big part of my childhood, but holy shit. this was fucking magical.
LibraryThing member EpicTale
I really enjoyed La Belle Sauvage (LBS), even if (alas) I am many decades too old for the book's YA market. Pullman's story-telling and prose style are engaging and (yes) page-turning. I also liked the book's erudition and the well-drawn main characters, both good guys and rascals.
LBS is every bit
I highly recommend LBS to YAs, OAs, and all ages in-between!
LBS is every bit
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as good as the best of the Harry Potter novels (Prisoner of Azkeban, I'm thinking), and arguably better (not that it's a competition). Having read Pullman's excellent His Dark Materials trilogy with my children 10 or so years ago, LBS draws me to read them again. I highly recommend LBS to YAs, OAs, and all ages in-between!
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LibraryThing member bluesalamanders
I liked this well enough, but it seemed kind of scattered at times, like a bunch of unconnected scenes. Also, Malcolm's characterization seemed too much like Lyra's (precocious, adventurous, resourceful, a creative liar, finds friends and allies easily) while Alice's characterization was weak
Content warnings:Animal harm, attempted rape, mentions of pedophilia, drowning, attempted child abduction, mentions of child abuse
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almost to the point of nonexistence (she was angry until she wasn't, and she was there to be Malcolm's Little Helper).Content warnings:
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LibraryThing member Sweet_Serenity
In this tale we meet Malcolm, a friendly clever and handy lad who spends is time working at his parents' inn, helping out the nearby nuns and rowing his canoe La Belle Sauvage. Whilst getting entwined with spies working with alethiometers to thwart the influence of the menacing church authorities,
Laid out like that, the story is very promising. And it fulfils about 70% of that promise. I grew fond of Malcolm and Alice. Their growing friendship in adversity was lovely to watch. Though just a baby, Lyra was enchanting, and the interactions between her and the kids were fun, with all of their daemons (baby Pan!) Adding an extra level of adorableness. Some of the canoe adventures were thrilling and fast-paced.
But.. the other 30% let the book down a little. The brilliance of Dust was key in the original trilogy, but this prequel doesn't offer much new there, just rehashes what we already knew. The authoritarian religious elements (aside from the kindly nuns at the start) were also a bit over-the-top, they didn't have the subtle chill from the original books, more the blow of a hammer. Some of the adventures towards the end made my interest drift away, and were a bit too similar from scenes in the original. An encounter with a fairy, a break-in to a religious institution and an ambiguous journey near the land of the dead, all seemed a bit mundane somehow, though they should have been some of the best parts. There were a few extra dark scenes, which seemed a bit too mature almost for a book with an 11 year old character, and disturbed me a little. Usually that sort of thing doesn't bother me, but here it just didn't feel right. And after the book started to seem a little overlong and bloated, the ending was really abrupt.
Ultimately, I think a more succinct version of this book, with a more thoughtful and conclusive ending, would have impressed me more. It had all the beautiful elements I was hoping for, but they got bogged down by some scenes I couldn't get into, and too much of the extraneous stuff happening in the wider society. I did really love seeing baby Lyra, and am just as excited for grown-up Lyra. Malcolm and Alice were no Lyra & Will, but they were still brave and interesting kids that I enjoyed my time with.
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he grows to adore little baby Lyra, who was left in the care of the nuns. As an epic flood devastates the village and all of London, Malcolm and Alice, a standoffish waitress with courage and other hidden depths, rescue Lyra from the flood and evil forces in Malcolm's canoe, to try and take her to her father or the sanctuary of Jordan College.Laid out like that, the story is very promising. And it fulfils about 70% of that promise. I grew fond of Malcolm and Alice. Their growing friendship in adversity was lovely to watch. Though just a baby, Lyra was enchanting, and the interactions between her and the kids were fun, with all of their daemons (baby Pan!) Adding an extra level of adorableness. Some of the canoe adventures were thrilling and fast-paced.
But.. the other 30% let the book down a little. The brilliance of Dust was key in the original trilogy, but this prequel doesn't offer much new there, just rehashes what we already knew. The authoritarian religious elements (aside from the kindly nuns at the start) were also a bit over-the-top, they didn't have the subtle chill from the original books, more the blow of a hammer. Some of the adventures towards the end made my interest drift away, and were a bit too similar from scenes in the original. An encounter with a fairy, a break-in to a religious institution and an ambiguous journey near the land of the dead, all seemed a bit mundane somehow, though they should have been some of the best parts. There were a few extra dark scenes, which seemed a bit too mature almost for a book with an 11 year old character, and disturbed me a little. Usually that sort of thing doesn't bother me, but here it just didn't feel right. And after the book started to seem a little overlong and bloated, the ending was really abrupt.
Ultimately, I think a more succinct version of this book, with a more thoughtful and conclusive ending, would have impressed me more. It had all the beautiful elements I was hoping for, but they got bogged down by some scenes I couldn't get into, and too much of the extraneous stuff happening in the wider society. I did really love seeing baby Lyra, and am just as excited for grown-up Lyra. Malcolm and Alice were no Lyra & Will, but they were still brave and interesting kids that I enjoyed my time with.
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Awards
Locus Award (Finalist — Young Adult Novel — 2018)
Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing (Nominee — 2019)
Odyssey Award (Honor — 2018)
Australian Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — 2018)
Isinglass Teen Read Award (Nominee — 2020)
Books Are My Bag Readers Award (Shortlist — 2018)
YA Book Prize (Shortlist — 2018)
Waterstones Book of the Year (Shortlist — 2017)
Lodestar Award (Nominee — 2018)
NPR: Books We Love (2017)
The A.V. Club best books (2017)
Best Fiction for Young Adults (Selection — 2018)
CCBC Choices (2018)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Teens (Fiction — 2017)
Language
Original publication date
2017-10-19
ISBN
9781409025474