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review of the book of dust

Alright.

I hated Lyra’s Oxford.

I own it. I’ve only read it once. The story promised (Lyra begins to investigate an insidious disease that kills witches but not their daemons) was not the story delivered (a witch wants to kill Lyra in revenge).

It was a brief little moment in time that could have stayed in Pullman’s head forever--it was needless. It didn’t add to the world. It was only a happening. I was so, so angry.

La Belle Sauvage was a little like that. Here was this book that, for twenty years, Pullman said would be about the origins of dust, an account that I thought would have layers upon layers of story-symbolism-character, and instead we get a strong, smart boy who for half a 450-page book is canoeing infant Lyra to safety.

It’s still Pullman. Just dipping back into this world was also a journey back into myself, to the Samantha who first read the trilogy over and over, and touching that past me was just as electrifying as reading “anbaric” again. I am still all of the ages I have ever been, and there’s nothing like a book that becomes a part of you at a set age to allow you to unravel backwards and know yourself as you once were. So to read about secret societies, the carefulness of a carved acorn as a vessel, nuns carving potatoes, was also to touch back on unpolished armor and endless snow and the evilness of a little golden monkey.

But it wasn’t enough. I realized how quickly I was reading through it. It has no density. There’s enough detail yes, but no density. The characters are enough, the plot is enough, but in sum, a boy is enlisted as a spy by a scholar, the Evil Church infiltrates the school system, there’s a flood, and the boy takes Lyra to Asriel with enough mortal and magical danger following him to cow adults. That’s really it. For almost half a thousand pages.

The strengths were Pullman’s storytelling and authorial elegance. It should have felt wasted that Malcolm spends so much time relaying information and then discussing it, but to me it didn’t. His parents being only half-alert to his activities should have felt like an excuse for him doing whatever he wanted, but it didn’t. Of course, this made all weaknesses that...more...alarming.

Let’s talk about Alice.

I loved Alice. I loved her anger. I loved her violence. I loved that when she attacked her blows had heft and weight and damage. I loved that she wanted to be wanted and loved in a very 16 year-old way, knowing the adult men around her saw her as a sex object, and she knew it meant nothing beyond that, because she knows she’s not pretty.

Then there’s what Pullman does with her.

First, she’s groped. I waited for this to have a point. It didn’t have a point.

Then she’s almost seduced by Bonneville, who tells her what her immature and lonely teenage heart wants to hear--she’s pretty, she’s sexually attractive, she’s enough herself. As someone who, before my bf happened, angsted endlessly over whether I was prettysmartfun enough as me instead of being the closest prettysmartfun female around for a dude to be like “well, she’s enough, I guess”, I get it! I’ve been there!

Then she’s raped.

Her rape doesn’t have a point. It’s rape for the sake of a teenage girl being an object to show how evil the Main Bad Guy is and to, cliche of cliches, force the 11 year-old hero to make harsh and soul-stretching (literally) sacrifices.

I don’t know if this ruined the book for me or not, which shows the strength of Pullman’s....well, everything--his power as a writer, my loyalty to him etc., but it damaged the book. It damaged Lyra for me, and Mrs. Coulter, and Serafina, and every other girl and woman who Pullman formed and then left alone, because he made them, and then was still capable of this.

I don’t know if Alice was a mistake or not.

Her relationship with Malcolm is odd. He’s 11, she’s 16, they start hating each other, and up until they fled in the canoe I was worried Pullman would be obvious and make her a Betrayer. Malcolm and Alice become friends because they have to be in a way that echoed Will and Lyra a little too closely. By the time Malcolm is checking her out physically (after her rape, wtf) and accepting his crush on her, I was irritated.

It would have made more sense if Alice was 13 or 14, except then she couldn’t have been a sex object capable of being raped (too young! haha! 16 isn’t, right?), and her forced maternal ties to Lyra would have been more questionable if she and Malcolm had been around the same age--Pullman uses her as a nanny who refuses to let our Brave Hero change her, even after accusing him of dragging her alone to take care of the baby. But her daemon hasn’t settled yet, so what is the point? What is Alice? Just a tool? Malcolm tells her what to do (and his bossiness was a little irritating when he was explaining...dare I even say mansplaining?? how Dr. Relf should fix her window) and she goes along even as she sulks and whines. During half the book I thought she was 13 and not 16 (up until the rape, which I didn’t quite believe till I realized her real age). I still don’t understand why she never, ever helped steer the canoe. She’s five years older, and a six month-old sleeps a lot. Every time I read that Malcolm’s arms were trembling with exhaustion I wanted to throw up my hands--there’s a strong teenager! In the same canoe as you! Let her do it!

The rape was a disgrace, and it threw into question most of the book for me--it was so off-kilter and banal. This is the man who gave me cloud pine, and now he is giving me glimpses of a bloody thigh of an attacked girl.

Reading His Dark Materials was to wrap the strength of Will and Lyra around myself, to think that I would be as brave and strong and heroic as they were in the same situation. Reading La Belle Sauvage reminded me that as a woman I’m vulnerable. I didn’t want that. Ever.

Anyway.

What I loved

Farder Coram’s battle with Bonneville. The intrigue, the evilness, the pacing--it was all perfect.

Lord Asriel. 30 year-old Samantha has ummmmm an interest in him that 13 year-old Samantha didn’t, let’s ignore that he murdered Roger.

Baby daemons. Pan as a chick! A kitten! A tiger cub!

The hyena daemon.

The creepy group-of-butterflies daemon.

Ayyyy Hannah has a fake leg like meeeee.

What was meh

All of the magical elements that Pullman introduced in this volume didn’t fit logically enough into his world. Fairy woman was awkward and her defeat simplistic. The fairy island, the dead people garden party, the water spirit at the gate, all of them felt disparate and childish when taken together--I only liked the dead people garden party for having some resemblance to the land of the dead and having a defined magical entrance and exit.

Too many moments of just-at-the-point-of-exhaustion they get a rest!

Pullman is hardcore anti-religion and the use of children with their little murder squads was too heavy-handed. A little laughable, honestly.

I still don’t get how the sexual predator thing was supposed to play out. Again, I thought this was going to be a heavy-handed anti-Catholic thing where some church official was going to seduce Malcolm. Was this man supposed to be Bonneville? Was his rape of Alice what was intended? I don’t understand if this was a plot hole or a really awful explanation of Bonneville.

I will wish forever that instead of encountering dead garden party and evil fairy, Malcolm and Alice had stumbled upon a camp of witches and been cared for by them.

Also, Pullman switched around Asriel and Marisa’s hair colors? What?

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