The Book of Dust

[Jamie John]

Blimey! That's a lot sooner than I anticipated. Can't say I like the name. Sounds like a political treatise instead of a fantasy adventure aimed at young adults.

[Stig]

Theres a fair amount of politics in HDM

[Stig]

Anyone got the new book yet? I'm currently reading another book so will get onto it ASAP after that, just wondered if anyone else had any early thoughts on it?

[Mogster]

I've got it, but I've only read the author's note at the start so far. That was enough to surprise me though as I'd completely forgotten when this part was set. 

[Mawdlin]

Just finished The Book of Dust and it was a disappointment. Certainly not a bad book by any means but it lacked the spark and energy of Lyra's earlier adventures.

 

It actually felt padded and a bit plodding, like someone who'd either been given a big advance to write a new trilogy then realised, oh shit, I've actually got to write the thing now. Or someone who's reputation has expanded to the point where an editor dare not criticise and change a word.

 

I'm glad Lyra will be grown up in the next one and hopefully he'll be back on form again.

[Mogster]

I'm a few chapters into The Secret Commonwealth now, mostly listening to the audiobook, and I'm really enjoying it. It's great to be back with Lyra and Pan again. 

[Jamie John]

Despite being very disappointed with The Book of Dust, I'll definitely be getting the sequel. More positive impressions, please!

[joemul]

I felt like the entire Secret Commonwealth felt like an opening chapter. 

[gizmo1990]

As has become tradition, I read vol 2 over Christmas. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Pullman certainly takes you on a journey in this one and also asks a lot of the reader, but you're rewarded with a story and characters that sweep you up and really fire the imagination, imo.

 

It's probably his most obviously 'sub-textual' book so far, but perhaps that's needed in times such as this and will hopefully resonate more with younger minds because of it.

[The Fox]

Just over halfway through volume 2 and so far it's much, much better than volume 1. The subtext is pretty on-the-nose at times, but then it is intended to be suitable for younger readers too, so that's fine.

[Bazjam]

Only just got round to finishing the second one, and thought it was fantastic. For the last couple of hundred pages or so I just couldn’t put it down. Hope we don’t have to wait to long for volume three.

[Stig]

Taken me a year to finally get my claws into it for one reason or another but I have about a quarter of the book left. Been really enjoying it. 

 

I just watched the start of the second series of HDM on Sunday night too and I had this weird feeling because I'm watching/reading the same characters with Lyra and Pan but at totally different moments in their lives. Seeing them being happy and close with each other on screen is completely at odds with whats happened in the book.

[Stig]

Finished this last week and really enjoyed it. I dont think it hits the heights of HDM but it was better than La Belle Sauvage. I think Lyra being the focal point of the story helped that a lot.

 

I wouldn't say everything is great with it, as I think the whole Malcolm being in love with Lyra is a bit weird and feels like grooming. Even though I know its not, its got that aire about it. Also I wasn't keen on the sexual assault part, felt like it was put in there purely for Lyra to have a reason to use the stick. The other thing I think this suffers from though is that the side characters aren't nearly as memorable as those in HDM. I cared about what was going on with Mary, Lee, Serefina and Iorek. In this, I wasn't too bothered about Hannah, Alice or Malcolms mum. They seemed like a distraction.

 

Having said all that though I very much enjoyed it, I like that its a little bit darker and more adult and its a very good follow up to HDM. I'm excited to see where it goes and where some of the threads left dangling will lead too. I've very much enjoyed Pullman delving more into daemons this time around too. There seems to be more of a focus about them and their purpose and its interesting to read about other people missing theirs or how their daemons fell in love with other humans etc.

[Timbuktu]

 

On 10/11/2020 at 21:34, Stigweard said:

Taken me a year to finally get my claws into it for one reason or another but I have about a quarter of the book left. Been really enjoying it. 

 

I just watched the start of the second series of HDM on Sunday night too and I had this weird feeling because I'm watching/reading the same characters with Lyra and Pan but at totally different moments in their lives. Seeing them being happy and close with each other on screen is completely at odds with whats happened in the book.

 

Coming here from the BBC show thread, you asked what I didn't like about this book, so this might sound a bit more negative that I feel overall.   I read the Secret Commonwealth a year ago, I am referencing some impressions I wrote down at the time.  I read pretty much all the books as they came out, so I was 10/11 with Northern Lights, pretty much exactly Lyra's and Will's age with the Subtle Knife and getting into uni by the time The Ambder Spyglass came out. Maybe it was because of I was getting older, but even by The Amber Spyglass, it felt a lot more heavy handed. With Belle Sauvage a couple of years ago, I thought it was well written but it was centred so much on Oxford, there was less adventure and less fantastical somehow. Perhaps that was me being older still and also much more familiar with Oxford and its colleges, it's not a place of imagination for me anymore.

With The Secret Commonwealth, I thought it felt closer to the original trilogy than Belle Sauvage and Pullman's writing is still a joy to read, but I also found it to be quite problematic in places and not particularly sophisticated in its real world social commentary.

I love having Lyra and Pan back and Pullman renders them very well, although I don't particularly buy their central conflict. I get that there is tension between them since the event of the land of the dead, but the chapters devoted to the books Lyra was reading and the philosophy about truth felt half baked. To be honest it felt like Pullman might be criticising certain academics he knows in real life.  It's nice when old characters are brought back and I loved the mention of Will. The few instances of magic, the airship, the fens and 'the secret commonwealth' are memorable. There is just less of it. I guess part of it is about Lyra having grown up and losing that bit of imagination. You might say that is a price we pay for not being a kid anymore as a reader, but this book also seems to aim for an older readership, some incidents in the story are definitely not really for kids.

I'm less fond of Malcolm in this book, he seems a bit like a James Bond/ Jack Reacher/ Robert Langdon character.

 

Spoiler

I also find the romance element between him and Lyra questionable and unnecessary, particularly when he has known her since she was a baby and has been her teacher. Then there is also that attempted rape on Lyra late on... by which time I thought the book was losing steam, where you have three protagonists on parallel journeys that goes on and on without meeting.  I don't want them to ruin what we had with Lyra and Will.  

 

I think this book could have done with more editing. It can easily lose a hundred or two hundred pages and be a better read.  I mean, The Subtle Knife and Northern Lights put together wasn't this long and they were much denser with interesting concepts, but then again I haven't reread them since I was a teen.  

I also feel that the book is a bit Orientalist in how it constructs this world. Europe is seemingly still Europe and the north in the old trilogy was a magical place with witches and armoured polar bears.  Going east you have countries such as Syria, Turkey and Tajikistan and also using archaic terms like 'Levant' and 'Bohemia', which makes me question the history of this world.  The scope is wider, but the more of the world we see, the less coherent it feels to me; the further away from Oxford you go the less descriptive the places become.    There are mentions of refugees from North Africa and the Middle East and a lot of analogues with current real world problems, but the story flattens them because every problem is due to the Magisterium.   That is my main worry going into the next book, which will be set in Asia and evoke Asian mythology.  I guess the orientalism was already in the original trilogy when Pullman writes about the I Ching etc.  I don't have faith in Pullman writing about those cultures, when I remember him saying in interviews that he hasn't travelled much in those parts of the world and quite proud of being able to invent things as a writer.

 

PS.  Looking back at what I wrote last year reminded me that Bridge Theatre was going to do an adaptation of La Belle Savage this year, which hasn't happened for obvious reasons.  Hopefully it'll come back when things are under control.  I would be interested, their productions are usually excellent.   https://bridgetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/la-belle-sauvage/ 

[Stig]

Thanks for that @Timbuktu.

 

I really did enjoy the book but I also agree with some of your points too. 

 

I didn't have much of a problem with Malcolm being like he was, LBS already showed him as being a resourceful lad when younger, I dont think its too much of a stretch that he grew up to be the man in this book, especially with Oakley Street training. My biggest issues with his character is his feeling towards Lyra.

 

I really liked the adventure Lyra and Malcolm ventured on though and the scenarios they ended up in, but I do think its missing some of the magical elements that HDM (specifically Northern Lights) had. I guess her meeting with the man on fire and his fate was closer to this stuff and I think the Alchemist they met will have a bigger part to play in this all too. But its missing something special like the Bears and Witches at the moment. Magic seems to be stuck in the shadows right now, but maybe with the Magesterium welding so much power over the places she's travelled, that is on purpose.