I’m a great Philip Pullman fan so when word of his new series The Book of Dust was first announced, I was excited. La Belle Sauvage is volume one in the series and tells the story of eleven-year old Malcolm who lives beside the River Thames at The Trout pub at Godstow, near Oxford. One day, a baby arrives at the priory on the other side of the river. Called Lyra, mystery surrounds the child, her parentage, and why she is cared for by the nuns. 
This of course is Lyra Belacqua, so familiar and beloved of Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. La Belle Sauvage is the story of Malcolm’s fascination with the baby Lyra, his relationship with scholar Hannah Relf and his suspicions about a mysterious stranger who visits The Trout. Everyone dislikes this man, despite his ready smiles and chat, because of his daemon, a three-legged hyena. Common with the first book of every series, there is a certain amount of scene setting, the laying-down of foundations for the forthcoming books. Pullman takes time and care to develop the character of Malcolm, the love he has for his canoe La Belle Sauvage, his relationships with his parents, the nuns, and Alice who works in the kitchen. Every reader of His Dark Materials knows the story of the fight between Lyra’s parents and how she was hidden in a cupboard with a gyptian boatwoman. La Belle Sauvage starts after this, when Lyra is placed in the nunnery for her safety. Lurking threat is there on every page – a light mist at first, developing into a heavy presence which will not go away – as Pullman constructs a world in which research into Dust is in its early stages; a resistance group, Oakley Street, is formed to fight The Magisterium; and the League of St Alexander radicalises schoolchildren to inform on unbelievers.
I became very fond of Malcolm. Pullman has a way of writing child characters who stand at the edge of things; they are not the most popular, the high achievers or the butterflies; but they have potential, as all children do. Pullman creates thoughtful character arcs for his child characters so we see them change and grow, facing difficulties, making mistakes, learning and maturing. In Malcolm, more than with Lyra and Will in His Dark Materials, I was conscious of Pullman’s background as a teacher. I was cheering for Malcolm, for his ingenuity, his bravery, his kind heart, his sense of fairness and justice.
If you haven’t read Pullman because he ‘writes for children’, you are missing out. He creates characters you care about, he expertly drip-feeds mysterious information and lays a factual base which seems irrelevant at first reading but will be revealed as essential at moments of crisis, he manages the ebbs and flows of tension, and creates a mystical world that is believable. Every fact included has a significance. He is a writer of tremendous detail, patience and care.
Just read him.
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Read my review of THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH, second in ‘The Book of Dust’ trilogy.
If you like this, try:-
‘The Bear and the Nightingale’ by Katherine Arden
‘The Magicians’ by Lev Grossman
‘The Queen of the Tearling’ by Erika Johansen
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LA BELLE SAUVAGE by @PhilipPullman https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3k9 via @SandraDanby
“That weekend, browsing her bookshelves, I discovered so many intriguing old books. I started reading The Catcher In The Rye [above] and could not put it down. It’s fair to say I fell completely and utterly in love. I have been in love with it ever since and have read it countless times at various stages in my life. I get something new from it every time I read it. I would say I re-read it every couple of years, mostly out of love, but also familiarity and curiosity. What else will I get from it, if I read it again? The one thing that draws me to it is the character, and I have always been drawn to character-driven books. I think this was the first one I ever really came across, where not much happened in terms of plot, but it had a character I would never forget and always feel a connection to.
One boy’s mission to find the good in people. Twelve-year-old Elliot Pie lives a solitary life with his agoraphobic mother. He is desperate to help her and he also wants to find out what happened to his Uncle Liam, who walked out one night leaving his dog and his car in the back garden. While his mother sinks further into the darkness, Elliot finds comfort in people-watching. He is determined to prove to her that good people still exist and when a stranger is kind to him one day, a plan is hatched. A plan to save his mother. A plan that might help him find Uncle Liam. Elliot’s collection of strangers all have stories to tell about human nature, but is he placing his trust in the wrong people? Or is the real danger closer to home?
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