La Belle Sauvage, the odyssey of a brand new dusty trilogy

It was the end of an era. A new millenium and a sense that something in the air was changing. Teenage culture was, too. Some talk about the Y generation. Some say we are digital natives. But what I witnessed at that time when everyone got hooked on MsN - I didn't, my monster of an Imac was just for games - was the tidal of young adult/ fantasy fiction. And you know what? The extreme success of spin-offs from series like Harry Potter or Hunger Games prove us that we crave for stories. After all, we are only human. Books are, to my mind, way more significant than the computerised image. Will the new app or a live chat make you think, travel, open your mind and imagine fantastic beasts (and where to find them)?

So yes, I think the book industry still has a long way to go. Whether it be on your Kindle or printed on your favourite paperback (so far you understood where my loyalty will go to). In that sense, the literary saga that left the most profund imprint on me was His Dark Materials. Probably because I identified so much with Lyra, this lying little brat (see her on the French cover of the trilogy's first installment). Or because Pullman drew so much on religious myths, endowing his trilogy with such visionary power that it became over the top (plus he got me sobbing at the end of The Amber Spyglass, at Will and Lyra's parting). Truth is, Pullman never intented his novels to be marketed as children fiction. And that probably accounts for their maturity. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Potterhead and will always be, but there is something much more compelling about Pullman's narrative. The fall, the re-writing of Genesis and how it connects with the steampunk world Lyra evolves in, merged with other worlds - where Will comes from - and Greek mythology through the visit to the Underworld, His Dark Materials wraps around a larger-than-life story. In the first place, I was so engrossed with it I refused to fall into the Harry Potter common pit just for the sake of contradiction, and because everyone reading it at school during breaks got on my nerves. 'It's all about a fad and it will die soon enough' I used to think (I couldn't have been more wrong, couldn't I?). 

Later on, I finally agreed to drop my guard by swapping series with a friend who was skeptical of His Dark Materials. We promised to each other we'd finish our reading at the end of Easter holidays, and when we came back to school, we had to admit we were initially mistaken, and that, thanks to the other, we came to realise this was an amazing experience. 

Thanks to Pullman, I discovered the great poets of English-speaking literature: William Blake of course, but also Milton and Emily Dickinson. Actually, His Dark Materials embodied such a touchstone in my pre-teenage yers that I barely got interested in other publications related to this universe. I was too afraid to be disappointed. I remember reading the first book from the Sally Lockhart series without much enthusiasm. It lacked strenght, so I didn't bother reading the sequels. 

Then it was with a mix of fear and excitement - especially after the major critical disaster of The Cursed Child's script - that I waited over a year for the release of The Book of Dust's first novel. Seventeen years after His Dark Materials came out, Pullman had finally decided to go back to Lyra's world. 

La Belle Sauvage refers to the canoe owned by the main protagonist, a boy named Malcolm and his demon Asta. Living in Oxford, their path will cross the one of His Dark Materials' heroine, only a baby. So the action is set exactly ten years before our beloved trilogy. If you've ever wondered how Lyra ended up being placed in Jordan College, Oxford, this is the story you were looking for. 

Exeter College, Oxford
The alma mater of Pullman's

But it starts like a very mundane tale, with an ordinary child, working in an ordinary inn, somewhere in Godstow. Unexpectedness knocks at the door when his path crosses that of a secret society known as Oakley Street. They investigate on the religious practices of the Magisterium, that Marisa Coulter - Lyra's mother, remember? - belongs to. By that stage (in the plot installment) I have to confess I was not so gripped by Malcolm and his hero-like desire to save Lyra from the claws of Bonneville, because you already know she represents everything the Magisterium fights against (or for, in some cases): the New Eve. 

On the other hand, the glimpse at the political intricacies of this fantasy world totally got my attention. At that point, the most fascinating character was, I thought, scientist Hannah Relf, attempting to decipher the several layers of meaning produced by the reading of the alethiometer. She offered a riveting, if not more enthralling, counterpart to Dr Mary Malone from The Subtle Knife. So it's only naturally that I wondered what part Hannah will play in the unravelling of the narrative. Will she take on the role of the Serpent too? 

Godstow Bridge and river,
Central setting of La Belle Sauvage

But all my hesitations were shushed by the odyssey that was to come, that is, the trip Malcolm and Alice undertake to save their lives and Lyra's. By that time, the storyline adopts a new tone, that of the journey, and reminds the reader of the great events that were to occur in His Dark Materials. In the face of catastrophe, Malcolm and Alice's behaviours change too. After all, they still are very young kids who begin to witness the true face of the world. Murder, blood, tragedy, torn families, rape... the fact that Pullman worked as a teacher with many children probably accounts for his sharp abilities to step into their shoes and describe with discretion and precision their reactions in the face of horror. 

Wrought with biblical undertones, La Belle Sauvage tackles, once more, the concept of good and evil, without setting up a manichean background. In Philip Pullman's novels, you rarely have the nice versus the bad guys. Perfection is not from this world. Later in the narrative, you often grasp the darkest side of some character or the motives of an another that might have seemed dubious to you, as was the case with Mrs Coulter. Reflecting on the great literary sagas of us millennials,  this is how I want to prove that Pullman is, to my mind, way smarter than J.K. Rowling, by delivering a message which never feels moralising. Because his plots are written according to a multiplicity of viewpoints, the reader is never told what to think or how to consider a character. Same with magic. In Pullman's universe, it is never that obvious, fantasy is part of the mysteries of this world, we don't speak of it, when it happens, it embodies this suspended instant of strangeness that bewilders humans.
Besides, Pullman doesn't have to "sell out" to make his books relevant, nor does he de-naturalises his initial characters, it is about the story, just the story. He also is a far more discreet (thank God for us) celebrity than Rowling, not jittering random thoughts on any topic as they come to him on Twitter...

Marketing strategies aside, La Belle Sauvage does not fail to demonstrate that children too, can resort to violence, and this is the very moment when Malcolm started to become interesting to me. The overall climate of the novel certainly feels very humid - we are dealing with a reconfiguration of Noah's Flood, after all - but in the writing style too. If the main element of Northern Lights was ice (and, by extension, air), The Subtle Knife seemed to be ablazed with fire, while The Amber Spyglass, with its descend into the Underworld, was connected with telluric forces. How ironic was it that I drowned myself into La Belle Sauvage just a month before my hometown was  taken under water, about 2 years after the Seine reached its level-alert peak? The liquid element pervades even the visual imagery to constitute the climax of the novel. However, my sense of enjoyment was most complete towards the end when Alice and Malcolm reach the fairy island. 

William Turner, The Deluge, 1805
Oil on canvas, 143 x 235,6 cm
Tate Britain

Despite a few lengths, several questions remained scattered during the course of my reading. Apart some very menial musings over Mrs Coulter's hair color, I kept wondering about the time period of Lyra's birth. For some reason, I had always imagined her world to be some kind of Neo-Victorian era, but since they mentioned a conflict in the book that really looked like WWI or WWII, I'm not so sure anymore... 
What is sure is that Pullman's descriptions include the Gothic Revival architecture of the Victorian era beside a thirst of knowledge that materialises in the interest for scientific innovations. The whole point of The Book of Dust will be the investigations on the cosmic matter that governs consciousness, opposing free thought to theocratic organisations. Again, Pullman imbues his trilogy with the great philosophical musings of all times.  Are we spirit or matter? It will only take us the second installment, The Secret Commonwealth - which released date has not been set yet - to unearth its ciphers. 




To me, the Harry Potter series is decidedly over (if it'd be my choice I would have erased that terribly sentimental epilogue), and I won't even bother watching Fantastic Beasts vol. 2. Pullman's strength, on the other hand, was to leave readers longing and sad to say farewell to their beloved Lyra and Will. With this new prequel, he succeeded, once more, in having us beg for more.