The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage (Volume 1)

A gripping adventure for readers of almost any age, and a sensational audio performance from Michael Sheen. I enjoyed this book very much, and it encapsulates the feeling of adventure and magic that many books read during childhood bring about. While the hero is a young boy and much of the action and obstacles he faces are all age appropriate, Pullman manages to weave in plenty of more mature themes without necessarily tipping off young readers to what he's doing and the result is a book that can be enjoyed by kids and analyzed by adults. The book is part spy novel, part adventure story and part look into the lore of Dust and the world created in His Dark Materials. Because it's the first in a trilogy it's hard to know which bits are one-off side tracks and which will be building blocks in what's to come, so that makes it a little hard to review the book in its entirety, but even with many unanswered questions it's a gripping and enjoyable read. Pullman has also clearly improved his craft from HDM, and the writing is just better from a technical standpoint while his themes and ideas are more subtle and puzzling rather than being so on the nose. Malcolm is a wonderful protagonist, and the sort of kid you want young readers to admire and emulate. He is brave and loyal and most of all curious and in love with learning, which is such an important trait to try and impart to young readers. For audio lovers, Michael Sheen does a splendid job bringing the story to life. He lets the emotion and drama into his voice, sometimes shouting other times whispering but always capturing the feel and tone of the scene to great effect.

The three volumes of Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy comprise one of my favorite literary adventures--books that I can honestly say changed my life, and, particularly, the way I think about the world. So I was overjoyed to learn of Pullman's new trilogy "The Book of Dust" of which this "La Belle Sauvage" is the first volume. And I was not disappointed! "La Belle Sauvage" returns to the world of "Dark Materials" a few years before the opening of "The Golden Compass", but it is much more than a conventional prequel or formulaic re-hash of the story we already know. There are some new characters to love and cheer for, new mysteries to puzzle out, new ideas to keep us thinking. And adventure! I won't give away too much of the story; let's just say that baby Lyra is in grave danger, sought after by the sinister Consistorial Court of Discipline, and stalked by a malefic mad scientist with a truly nasty hyena daemon who'll stop at nothing to get what he wants--though precisely what that is remains a mystery throughout the book. Lyra and her baby daemon, Pan, find a fierce protector in Malcolm Polstead, a bright, inquisitive, and highly resourceful 11-year-old with his trusty canoe La Belle Sauvage. When a great deluge ravages the land even as the baddies close in, Malcolm must take Lyra on a desperate journey from Oxfordshire down the swollen Thames to London, in search of Lord Asriel, the baby's father. As with his earlier work, Pullman's settings, so vividly described, become something like characters in and of themselves, reflecting and heightening the moods of the narrative, whether dark or sunny. Fascinating and wonderfully unique to this fantasy universe, are Pullman's charming and sometimes scary descriptions of the characters' relationships with their daemons; this adds new richly-textured layers to the already-vibrant storytelling. As always, I appreciate the fact that in writing ostensibly for younger readers, Pullman does not pull any punches regarding sexuality and violence, or turn away from "difficult" discussions of religion (the good and the evil), politics, superstition, and science. As to be expected in the opening volume of a trilogy, much of the story remains tantalizingly unresolved or, at least, open-ended at the final page. I look forward to the next book with great anticipation! Enthusiastically recommended!

There will be many paths into this book. Some will come to it cold having not read His Dark Materials, curious about what the fuss is all about. Others will come to it having read His Dark Materials long ago and so with a vague sense of the world they are re-entering. Some may read it because of an encounter with The Golden Compass movie. Others may have had the early books read to them when young. And some will come to it with a deep love and appreciation of the previous books, having read and reread them many times. I’m definitely one of the latter. I came across The Golden Compass shortly after publication and fell madly in love with it, a feeling that only solidified when I read The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. Since then I’ve read the books and listened to the full-cast audio recordings many, many times. It is a comfort experience, one of solace, one that has me admiring the trilogy more and more with each encounter. When the play was put on at London’s National Theater I went. With heart in my throat I followed the controversies around the movie and finally went to see it — yes, reader, I was disappointed. And now I wait eagerly for the forthcoming BBC series. All this is to say that I entered La Belle Sauvage with high hopes, with high fears, and with a deep knowledge and appreciation of the previous books and their world, characters, and themes. And so my response to the book is predicated on all of this. Someone on a different path will likely have a different response. I began with some anxiety — it had been seventeen years after all–but it was like dropping into a scented warm bath surrounded by flickering candles — in other words, a delight. The world was that of His Dark Materials, the characters multi-faceted whether major or secondary. the pacing tense and urgent, the ideas demanding and true. Best of all is the writing — Pullman is a wordsmith like few others. Again and again I just stopped to reread a gorgeous sentence, to admire a word or phrase, a clever construction, or the elegant weaving of information. Just look at this very first sentence: Three miles up the river Thames from the center of Oxford, some distance from where the great colleges of Jordan, Gabriel, Balliol, and two dozen others contended for mastery in the boat races, out where the city was only a collection of towers and spires in the distance over the misty levels of Port Meadow, there stood the Priory of Godstow, where the gentle nuns went about their holy business; and on the opposite bank from the priory there was an inn called the Trout. Taking us from the great colleges to mastery of boat races to misty levels to gentle nuns he lands us at the unadorned (no adjectives for it) Trout. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. As a writer I aspire to create anything even remotely close to that opening. Moving into the story proper we meet eleven-year-old Malcolm (and his daemon Asta) whose parents run the inn and so he works there too. As good in his own way as Lyra and Will, but a person distinctly all his own, this is a boy who is inquisitive, loves to make things, supremely sensible while also able to dream, honest (but able, in dire circumstances to lie effectively), solid (with adults and peers), and with a heart that is as big as the flood that comes midway in the story. In the first half, Pullman chillingly evokes a time when the country is still nominally free, but the various ecclesiastical dark forces that figure so prominently in His Dark Materials (set around a decade later) are rearing their ugly heads. Familiar characters appear or are referred to, notably Mrs. Colter and Lord Asriel. But most of all there is Lyra, a beautifully realized baby of six months old. Pullman’s development of her character at this age is masterful — I mean, it isn’t easy to show personality with a child who doesn’t have words yet. I suspect it is his remarkable invention of daemons that makes this possible as he describes wondrous moments throughout the book of baby Lyra and baby Pantalaimon. At one point there is a description of the tiny daemon trying to change into another creature, but unable to because he doesn’t know it yet. At another point an adult points out that their babbling to each other (made me think of the private language that sometimes exists between twins) is a way of learning how to speak. The plot involves saving the baby Lyra from the various nefarious people and organizations who are after her. Among them is an absolutely chilling villain (or malefactor as Malcolm might well call him), George Bonneville, who proves in horrific ways to be completely mad. Pullman sets things up in the first half of the book —- showing Malcolm’s cosy home life with his sensible parents, his enjoyment in helping out the nuns at the priory across the street (where he meets baby Lyra), his stolid firmness with friends and at school (where a creepy Hitler-Youth-like organization takes hold), and his handiness, especially with his beloved canoe, the eponymous La Belle Sauvage. And then things take off literally — there is flood of Biblical proportions and Malcolm along with Alice, a somewhat older and sulky worker in his parents’ inn, are off in the canoe to save Lyra. They are chased, they have narrow escapes, harrowing experiences, and otherworldly encounters. I enjoyed every moment of the book which I both listened to and read on my Kindle (so as to avail myself of the highlighting option). I attempted to savor it, but it was impossible to slow down during the second half any more than could the children in the canoe as it was born away in the raging flood. Now I’m planning to go back and listen to it again. (I am such a speedy readers that I love listening, especially when the writing is gorgeous, as it is much slower.) And again — in preparation for the next in The Book of Dust, set evidently some twenty years later. I waited seventeen years for this one so I think I can wait a bit longer for the next one. Thank you, Philip Pullman, for giving all of us, so completely and wonderfully, this chance to be lost again in your remarkable literary world.

I realize it’s a children’s book, but I liked it a lot.

This book was brilliant, explained a lot to me about the series I had previously read ‘His dark Materials,’which I had thoroughly enjoyed. Also was a thrilling adventure of a story quite gripping and exciting. On my previous book review it said what age did I buy the book for? Only went as high as 18+ I am in my 60s and I bought them for me. But they would suit any age from 12 up I think.

It is a nicely made edition. My copy came with uneven (uncut) edges of pages which adds to experience. Lyra story continues. I'd say it is not as great as trilogy but still very good.

Bought the original English version to do a nice immersion again in this wonderful story (I read the story already previously in my native language) before the release of the last book. I love Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials and the Book of Dust is a wonderful, deep, and vast realm completing the story of Lyra and Pantalaimon.

His Dark Materials was a groundbreaking trilogy of fantasy novels. They were breathtaking in their scope and originality; the concept of a person having the personification of their soul in the form of an animal called their daemon was both simple and a stroke of genius. It was also a wonderful writing device; characters could literally talk to themselves. For a long time, Pullman hinted that he was writing a second trilogy, The Book of Dust, following on from His Dark Materials. Finally, in 2017, the first part of that trilogy was published, La Belle Sauvage. This book, unlike the other two books in this new trilogy, is a prequel to His Dark Materials, but unlike so many other prequels, this isn’t an origins story. This is an intense adventure in its own right. Malcolm Polstead, the main character here, is a plain and non-heroic boy, not the usual adventurous type of boy found at the heart of a fantasy story, and this book is all the better for that. Malcolm’s ordinariness draws the reader into this story of cloak-and-dagger spying and sinister danger against the backdrop of the all-powerful Magisterium. Malcolm lives in an inn, on the bank of an Oxford river, run by his parents. On the opposite bank is a convent of nuns, several of the elderly nuns Malcolm has befriended. Three characters from His Dark Materials trilogy make an appearance here. Lord Asriel has a small but important part to play in the plot, Mrs Coulter makes a sinister cameo appearance, but it is Lyra who is an important part of the story, even though she is just a newborn baby here. The story begins with her left in the care of the nuns. What lifts this novel up from a well written, sinister spy adventure is the horrible event at the centre of this story. A terrible storm hits the country and overnight the whole of Southern England is flooded. What were once cities and towns and green countryside are suddenly turned into a desolate, dark sea of dank water. Suddenly the only land is at the top of hills or tall buildings. Into this dangerous world Malcolm and Lyra, accompanied by Alice, the inn’s young serving maid, must race across this now alien land in Malcolm’s small boat in an attempt to keep Lyra safe. Pullman’s writing is always of a high quality, he doesn’t turn in lazy or shallow characterisation because this is a “children’s novel”. The first part of this novel crackles with the sinister and dark tones of a spy thriller, but it is the second part of the novel where his writing shines. He paints the flooded landscape as an alien and dangerous world, the familiar gone as it is drowned under an unforgiving sea of water, in which the three characters have to survive. This book was certainly worth the wait. Pullman has lost none of his skill as a storyteller but neither has he run out of ideas and stories to tell in his unique universe. So often with sequels, especially after such original stories as His Dark Materials trilogy, there can be the law of diminishing returns, the author having used up all their ideas in the first book/books, not so here. The quality of La Belle Sauvage bodes well for the rest of the trilogy, and I am so glad to report that.

Absolutely loved this book. Pure imagination and fantasy, a gift of escape from the real world. Can’t wait to read the next book.