Family Book Swap: La Belle Sauvage

Title: La Belle Sauvage
Author: Philip Pullman

via Amazon

As noted in this post, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series was a favorite of my wife's and mine even before we were married.  We listened to the wonderful, full-cast audiobooks on road trips early in our relationship.  So, hopes for Pullman's latest series about Lyra's world are rather high.  La Belle Sauvage is the first volume of The Book of Dust trilogy.  It is set several years before The Golden Compass.  Lyra is an infant and the new protagonist is Malcolm, a young and extraordinary innkeeper's son who is heroically devoted to protecting her.  Malcolm is drawn into a world of simultaneously colorful and terrifying characters.  Some we already know: Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter.  Others, like the horrible Bonneville, are new.  Practically by accident, he stumbles into a spy network through which he learns of alethiometers. 

For a different hero, we get quite a different tale.  The new story is a lot darker than His Dark Materials.  The subject matter and even some of the language implies teenagers rather than younger children as the intended readers - not a good read-aloud for the tots.  In parts, the story also tends more to the surrealist end of fantasy than the original series did. 

Malcolm and Alice, his partner in this adventure, are total badasses.  One can't help admiring them tremendously by the end.  There is some untidiness in the narrative.  For instance, at one point Bonneville is revealed to have a predilection for young boys, a fact presented in such a way that one assumes it to be important to the story but then it isn't.  Or maybe it still will be in future books?  Hard to see how but we'll see.  Overall, Pullman's language, character development and world development are all expert level so I'm certainly up for more.  The second volume, The Secret Commonwealth, jumps ahead to the time after His Dark Materials.  I expect my wife will be swapping with me for that one soon, too.