La Belle Sauvage

I'm re-reading the first two volumes of "The Book of Dust", in preparation for the final book, due this month.

Once again my favourite aspect of this book is the rich array of mythic events: a giant flood; the emergence of mysterious ancient beings reminiscent of the Greek and Roman gods; a netherworld where the revelry of the denizens makes them oblivious to the apocalypse just beyond their view.

The new characters are also splendid. Malcolm is a striking contrast to Lyra in "Northern Lights". While she is rebellious and untamed in the previous trilogy, Malcolm is dutiful and domestic... but he ends up being a hero. Snarling, damaged Alice is a fine companion for Malcolm. The terrifying Bonneville is a relentless villain, the personification of sexual predation.

The oppressive rise of theocracy portrayed in the book resonated strongly. The army of child informants in the League of Saint Alexander reminded me of the emerging Christo-fascists of the MAGA movement in our real life 2025.

I'm less moved by Pullman's meditations on the nature of consciousness, but he weaves his scientific speculations so expertly with his mythical tapestries, they are still part of a coherent picture even to my cantankerously rationalist brain.

I am going to preface this by saying that the His Dark Materials trilogy was one of my very favourites growing up, and the first I remember calling into the book store every time I was in town to check if a new one was out yet.

I entered this book with some sense of trepidation. Lyra was one of the first characters I really connected with and I was worried this would ruin it for me.

What it really did was make me realise how much of the previous series I had forgotten. when it came to reading this book I found that it was a lot more fantastical than any of the earlier books were in my memory. I think this is actually because I'm not remembering correctly looking back at the Wikipedia articles for the other books in the series they were all pretty strange.

Having said that this was a great book. I think this would work well as a stand-alone book, as well as the introduction to the series even if you haven't read the other books yet. Much like the other box is some strange but familiar world with realistic characters and believable backstories.

If there are more dust book's coming out, I will probably get them.