Title: The Book of Dust (Volume 1 – La Belle Sauvage)

Author: Philip Pullman

Hi all,

Today, I have some fantasy to present to you, and I think you would enjoy this one quite a bit.

Before we start, I like to ask if you ever watched the movie “The Golden Compass” (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+golden+compass) back in 2007? If not, then I would advise that you start off with this book to get some vital background of the story.

First of all, the book is about the plot before the story in the movie happened. Therefore, you read better into how the different people have beef with the other people, and also understand what the magic tools (ie. the alethiometer) they are talking about everywhere.

The story is told from the perspective of a young lad, called Malcolm, who is involved in the family business of keeping a tavern at the banks of the river Thames. He helps the nuns at their priory across the river with odd jobs, and also helps other people, and thereby learns more of different things. They have an ordinary life going for them, and have all kinds of people coming into their tavern every other evening. However, in the last few nights they come across quite a few different people, who ask them questions of different sorts. The main question is about whether they know if the nuns have a baby girl in their priory with them. Mostly they answer that they keep to themselves and don’t pry into others business, but Malcolm likes to find out a little extra here and there for himself.

The nuns indeed have a baby girl in their keep, Lyra, who is a love child, and who apparently has a destiny on her shoulders, which the CCD (the church’s police) wish to get a hold of. Lots of different other things happen in between, and Malcolm then also learns some more on why he should keep a low profile from the CCD from a new college friend, Prof. Hannah Relf, and also that he should keep a close eye over the child.

Weeks later Lord Asriel, the father of the child, has someone bring Malcolm’s canoe back, and the gypsy tells him that they should prepare themselves for some floods in the coming days. One evening he visits the nuns, who are in prayer, and finds Alice (their bar maid) watching over the child. The weather becomes worse, much much worse, that they decide to take the child with them because the bad weather was happening right now and the home might just collapse. They get across to the tavern, but everything is locked, and the flood was getting stronger and deeper, and so they decide to take the canoe to flee, because someone else is in pursuit of them, to get hold of the child.

They flee Oxford, and travel all the way to London, and finally manage to meet some friends, who help them to get the child to Lord Asriel. He takes them and Lyra to receive scholastic sanctuary, which would protect them from the clutches of the CCD and the church.

Now, if you jump to the movie, this is where I presume the movie starts off telling the rest of the story. I would have to confirm that once I have also read volume 2, but in the movie the child was already much older and no longer a baby girl.

Summary:

Thrilling, and quite a tale of how two young kids manage to successfully evade the clutches of the authority, all for the safety of a child they know not much about. Every chapter of the story wants you to continue reading more, just to find out where they will end up next. The book is a great read, and therefore I give it a rating of 4,7/5.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!