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.

Philip Pullman writes with a knowledge of every level of life, the material, emotional, intellectual, spiritual and numinous and his wonder and questions about our folly and our sometime grandeur covers epochs and worlds. Reading Pullman makes you remember what it is to be truly human, what we are seeking and helps us see the path again when we have lost it. Add to that the fact that they are great stories and Pullman is a winner on every level. Much has been made about his atheism, but I would describe him more as a mystic seer and seeker who has no patience for cant but eons for honest exploration of the mysteries of existence and sentience. The mystery of sentience, its components and sources fills not only the Book of Dust, but his previous trilogy set in the same worlds, His Dark Materials. If you haven't read that trilogy, that is the place to start. La Belle Sauvage is a more somber book than the epic that is His Dark Materials. The story follows Malcolm Polstead, son of innkeepers just outside of Oxford. Malcolm, as other reviewers have noted is a little reminiscent of Will in his bravery and ability to blend in, but that is a minor criticism. Malcolm observes a lot during his work in the Trout, the inn his parents own and even more running errands and helping the nuns in the nunnery across the Thames. It is here that he meets the infant Lyra, given to the nuns for safe-keeping after her father is punished for the murder of Mr. Coulter. But times are unsettled and the air and water are bringing a flood that will devastate the Thames and environs while bringing one of those in between times that people long for that allows their deepest nature to prevail. This longing may be one of the many complex psychological reasons we start wars in our own world. But other dark forces are abroad and they all seem centered on the infant Lyra, who is prophesied to be an important person in the coming struggle between freedom and oppression. I won't give away the entire plot, but Malcolm finds Lyra in his care, along with Alice the scullery maid, a former enemy. Minor characters from His Dark Materials appear here in younger form and are fleshed out even more. Pullman's character development is amazing, especially in the character of Alice, an illustration of how first impressions can be mistaken with a false negative and Bonneville, an example of how evil fools us disguised as good. In fact, Pullman's portrait of sociopathy/psychopathy as it relates to persona and daemon is one of the most brilliant and harrowing parts of the book. Absolutely astounding and insightful observations about the nature of the human psyche and though horrifying it is absolutely true at the very deepest levels of knowing. Clearly, I am a huge fan of Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials is a desert island book for me. This opening volume of The Book of Dust doesn't consistently rise to the heights of The Amber Spyglass, but this reader felt it was an opening salvo in a trilogy that will ultimately stand beside its companion trilogy just as brilliantly. Pullman is tackling the big issues of human consciousness and experience and the mystery of the cognitive revolution that overtook us so suddenly and mysteriously in pre-history, the mystery that rates a mention in all world myths and for which there is still no explanation. Read La Belle Sauvage. Read it beside His Dark Materials and ponder the very nature of our being while having Pullman's take on a disaster tale with a flavoring of dystopia, but read it. I believe that Pullman is building to what will ultimately be his masterpiece on the mysteries of our being.

This is a prequel to ‘The Golden Compass’ and tells how Lyra come to be at Jordan College. It’s full or adventures that include dangers, mysteries and intrigue.

It's hard to write a review of a book that left you conflicted, even if you enjoyed that book. And I did enjoy Philip Pullman's LA BELLE SAUVAGE. In fact, I was overjoyed about revisiting his Victorian-inspired world of steampunk technology, witches, fairies, and (my favorite element by far) daemons. (I still want my own daemon, by the way!) It did take me a couple chapters to feel at home with the world again (then again, it's been 9 or 10 years since I read the Dark Materials Trilogy). But once I did, I quickly grew to like the characters, especially resourceful and helpful Malcolm. What a sweetheart. I admire him for his courage and selflessness in placing infant Lyra's safety above his own, and for his strength in continuing on despite his fears for his family. I think my seesawing feelings about LA BELLE SAUVAGE come from the fact that the first half of the book was stronger than the second half. Watching Malcolm become an amateur spy was both fun and suspenseful, since every minute I was worried whether he'd be found out. It was also gripping to see how the Magisterium operated in the years before Lyra's adventures began, including how they persuaded young children to report alleged acts of heresy. The tension was mounting, and the mysteries surrounding Dust, the Rusakov field, and the world's strange interest in baby Lyra grew more interconnected and layered - and then the flood happened. Actually, the early flood chapters were still thrilling, since Malcolm, his acquaintance Alice, baby Lyra, and their daemons were constantly in danger. But after a while, the plot began to feel episodic, as if Pullman was throwing an obstacle per chapter at the youngsters. So even though a lot is happening, it doesn't feel like the plot is building to a clear climax. And when the climax does come, it's messy and rushed. A few plot threads are left hanging, too, and we never learn the fates of certain characters. Given that Book #2 of the Book of Dust Trilogy will take place about 20 years in the future, with Lyra as the main character, I'm not sure we'll learn all the answers - and if we do, I have a feeling I'll be angry about having to wait that long to find out. So... yeah. I wanted to love LA BELLE SAUVAGE. I probably would have if the ending had been better crafted and more satisfying closure-wise. Here's hoping that Book #2 won't suffer from the same pitfalls.

The printing (hardcover 1st edition). Printing: Several odd choices. It advertises a full color illustration, which is actually a blue illustration. Blue is technically a color, so this isn't wrong, but it's a bit misleading. The edges are deckled, which is an irritation. Cut edges are much nicer, and easier to turn. Remove the "dust" jacket, and the cover is white cardboardy material with an embossed Phillip Pullman signature. Since the jacket art is unappealing, and the cover is dull, it would not make a nice displace piece. The margins are bizarrely huge. The text could have been printed in a much smaller book, without changing typeface. Typeface and layout is reading and unobtrusive. The story: If you liked His Dark Materials, you'll probably be okay with this. Many themes, and characters are revisited from HDM, although the major characters are largely different. The first act, which seems to encompass the majority of the first half of the book, introduces characters, setting, and sets up the crisis resolved in the second act. Oddly much of this is the protagonist observing other characters (encountered through chance), and then restating their actions to others. Most major scenes of the first act occur twice-- once in the happening and once in the retelling. A great deal of time is spend introducing a triagonist who is absent from the second act, and whose character development is suspected to pay off in a later book. Act II is more similar to HDM with two young protagonists, carrying out a mission in adverse conditions. They face down an inexplicably powerful human foe, and the mythology of Lyra's Earth is added to through a series of misadventures. Without undue spoilers, this act is also oddly punctuated with repetitive sequences describing childcare. Compared to Northern Lights/The Golden Compass as the beginning of a trilogy, it doesn't quite live up. The mystery being investigated is one we already have some answers to from HDM, and many of the elements of Lyra's Earth are one's we've seen before-- the magisterium, daemons, oxford, Witches, Gyptians, etc have already been treated in HDM. At the same time, Lyra's world seems much closer to our own than in HDM. Swiss army knives, disposable nappies/diapers, A Brief History of Time, all signal familiarity that wasn't apparent in HDM. Overall I believe it still deserves five stars. The narrative is entertaining, especially if taken in the context that is is a part of a wider series, and certain elements introduced today may not payoff until a later volume.

Came in with high expectations, after having been a fan of His Dark Materials and completely enamored with the mystical whirlwind that Pullman had created. This work is certainly a mystical whirlwind, but not quite in the same way – in fact, the narrative becomes rather repetitive between the midway point and three quarters point. The set-up is brilliant and interesting, and Pullman effectively introduces infant Lyra as a distinct character (hard to do with infants), alongside the thoughtful yet brave Malcolm. The threads of broader conspiracy are certainly there, but at a certain point the tapestry becomes overburdened – Pullman hits you over the head with the repeated egresses of the CCD, St. Alexander’s League, the Holy Order of Obedience, etc. – it is the same danger, simply repeated and to different degrees. Pullman treats the reader as a child with constant repetition and an overbearing narrative voice through Malcolm, with the only redeeming quality being its deep themes, which even themselves are overbearing. Malcolm as a character evolves in a relatively straightforward arc after the brilliant introductory period – post-flood, the novel becomes another boring derivative of The Odyssey, with a few odd twists that Pullman clearly takes pride in. His companion Alice is, while certainly memorable, underdeveloped and annoying early on – adopting a consistently harsh mindset towards Malcolm which is completely unrealistic, and only wavers towards the end. She isn’t nearly the complex character that Pullman makes her out to be – rather, she’s a stereotype of the traumatized survivor of abuse, who them balls up in a shell and lashes out at any attempts at contact - and her dynamic with Malcolm is entirely unbelievable. Their reconciliation at the end, brought on by shared trials and tribulations, and a poorly depicted rape scene, is utterly predictable. The saving grace of this novel is the compelling universe that Pullman draws on, as well as its relative fast pacing. I’ll go on to read the next two volumes, but hope dearly that the narrative is not so predictable, and that Pullman introduces some natural variation. Malcolm has hope as a character, and the hints at his sexual awakening could be interesting if handled correctly. Lyra and her daemon are ever interesting. The book is a five in terms of universe, but a one or two in terms of narrative and plot in the back half – hence a three overall.

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.

Segunda vez lendo, primeira na língua original e não podia ser mais perfeito. O sotaque de cada personagem dá ainda mais vida a eles. Phillip Pullman não decepciona!

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.