The Book of Dust, Volume One:
La Belle Sauvage
by Philip Pullman
La Belle Sauvage marks Philip Pullman's first full-length return to the world of
His Dark Materials since
The Amber Spyglass in 2000. The book is a prequel to
The Golden Compass, filling in some of the details on how Lyra came to be raised in Oxford by a bunch of academics. Lyra herself is an infant in this story, however; the protagonist is Malcolm Polstead, the son of a tavern-keeper in Oxford, who ends up discovering a spy network operating in Oxford, and doing his part to protect Lyra against the machinations of various forces vying for her, especially the Church.
The book is enjoyable, but not ground-breaking. I maintain that the original
Golden Compass is "
the most well-executed YA fantasy novel I've ever read"-- this doesn't come close.
La Belle Sauvage fills in some backstory details (it made me wish I'd read the original trilogy more recently, because I didn't always remember it well enough for new revelations to be meaningful), but doesn't really deepen the world.
The Golden Compass is magical in the way it unspools a new world for your enjoyment; this is a cozy return to an old world, as Malcolm's adventures are much more contained than Lyra's.
Like I said, I enjoyed it, but it didn't challenge or grab me. Malcolm is intensely likeable, and I enjoyed his adventures in Oxford. Pullman does a good job making him clever without making all the adults around him idiots. For most of its duration, reading
La Belle Sauvage is like reading one of those cozy mysteries where you know nothing bad can
really happen, and though I enjoyed the experience, when you finish reading, it seems a bit of a shame, because you know Pullman can do more.
That said, when the flood comes, the book really kicks up a notch; the book captures the surreality of natural disaster, with some magic sprinkled in. I really enjoyed this part of the book, and basically read it straight through in one sitting. The magic is interesting, and the violence in intense-- having set up Malcolm as a pretty ordinary boy, Pullman is able to use that to good effect as he, the tavern's kitchen girl, and infant Lyra flee for their lives across a devastated English landscape, facing perils both magical and mundane. It does cut off a little too quickly at the end, but I enjoyed it on the whole, and I look forward to seeing where Pullman goes in the next two books, which are supposed to move beyond the original trilogy, and I hope have deeper stakes than this one.
