I have finished reading my tenth novel for 2024, The Book of Dust, La Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman. The Book of Dust is volume one of a trilogy forming the prequel to Pullman’s hugely popular His Dark Materials series. And what a stunningly pretty book it is. A solid size with gold lettering set atop varying shades of blue, it’s attractive, and the velvety feel of the cover is alluring – it’s a tactile treasure I could not resist. Does the story feel like someone who has succeeded with a story idea and is seeking ways to eke out further interest and money from the same source? In a word, yes. But seriously, who could blame Pullman for attempting to wring more money from his golden cow? Does it add to the franchise? Yes and no. The Book of Dust tells the origin story of Lyra, the heroine of His Dark Materials, set in an alternate-world Oxford (and England). Here she is a six-month-old baby, and we learn the only reason she survived infancy is due to the immense courage and resourcefulness of two children, Malcolm and the bad-tempered Alice.
I was bemused by the structure of this story. The first half is ponderous, slow-moving, almost a yawn. We follow 11-year-old Malcolm Polstead, who helps out at the family-run inn the Trout on the banks of the river Thames. Unnoticed, Malcolm and his dæmon, Asta, spy on the patrons. He becomes exposed to the concept of dust, which is central to the entire series. He notes the curious characters passing through the inn: Lord Asriel, enforcement agents from the Magisterium, a gypsy named Coram with warnings about a coming flood, and a woman with an evil monkey for a dæmon. Malcolm’s curiosity is pricked by all these suspicious types asking about a baby named Lyra. However, he continues to move unobserved between the strange cast drinking at the Trout and the kind and caring nuns, whom he helps daily at the Priory nearby. The baby Lyra arrives in secrecy to the care of the Priory and Malcolm is greatly taken by her.
La Belle Sauvage is Malcolm’s beloved canoe, which he pours a lot of time and energy into maintaining to a high standard and takes out regularly on the water. Lucky for him, Lord Asriel repays Malcolm for his assistance by having the canoe upgraded and a few extras added because when the rains come, the canoe provides a means of surviving the catastrophic flooding. When the rains start in earnest, the tempo of the book escalates into high gear. Malcolm rescues Lyra from the flooding Priory, taking with them the eternally grumpy Alice – the fifteen-year-old misfit who works in the kitchen at the Trout. They head out into the water-logged world, determined to stay one step ahead of the horrifying villain Gerard Bonneville (and his three-legged hyena daemon).
From then on, the second half of the book details the heroic efforts of the two mismatched children to keep baby Lyra alive and out of the clutches of the relentless maniacal Bonneville. A horrific game of cat and mouse ensues that kept me biting my nails to the quick. Somehow, they survive but only just. I was truly shocked by some of the aspects of this story and questioned at times whether this could be classified as a children’s book, touching on aspects of animal cruelty, the dropping of f-bombs, Malcolm’s increasing obsession with the too-old-for-him Alice, her near-rape at the hands of Bonneville, and the social/political tone of the shadowy League of Alexander. Surely, it was far more suited to YA than Middle Grade, but maybe I’m old-fashioned. I found the slow almost boring first half of the book did not prepare me for the heartrending nonstop adrenalin of the second half, and it felt like the two halves did not fit together. It came across as a bit Frankensteinish.
Philip Pullman is a terrific English writer. His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, have been granted The Carnegie Medal, The Guardian Children’s Book Award, and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. In 2004, Pullman was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Nevertheless, The Book of Dust is a disturbing mishmash of a story. I’m not sure it added anything of real value to the franchise. Published in 2017, it was set 12 years before Northern Lights. The second volume in the new series, The Secret Commonwealth, was published in 2019 and is set after the events in the original trilogy with Lyra as a twenty-year-old. The third book in the series is still on the drawing board and is as yet unnamed. Let’s just say I won’t be rushing out to read them. The first book in this series was enough. I’m done.
My rating is two stars
Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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The story’s main focus is: “the struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organisation, which wants to stifle speculation and enquiry, and those who believe thought and speech should be free.” ~ Philip Pullman
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Yvette Carol, Author 