After watching the HBO series His Dark Materials late last year I used some of my Hanukkah B&N gift card to buy the books and then I finally got around to reading them in in the past few weeks, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass . If I had read them first I don't think I would have liked the show as much but since I didn't I was able to enjoy it but oh I loved the story in the books. At the urging of one of my dearest friends I grabbed this book and the second which I will be starting as soon as I am done with this post.
La Belle Sauvage isn't really Lyra's story but rather the beginning of the story of how Lyra came to be at Jordan College. It is Malcom's story and oh I love Malcom. You will too, I truly believe that.
He is a just as amazing and smart and brave as Lyra and Will are. Pullman does a great job treating children as capable of being brave and intelligent, of defying the odds and just not accepting failure as an option. The adults aren't always the smarter group of people in this world. And sometimes they aren't very good. But there is a clear sense of good and bad, to us the reader, even while the characters are faced with shades of gray and doing the best they can with what they have/know.
While this really is Malcom's story, he is our POV and our hero, we also get some more of the story of Lord Asriel, Mrs. Coulter, Fardar Coram, and learn some more about the Gyptians and the world that Lyra's story takes place in later.
Parts of the story had my heart pounding with fear. More of the connection between people and their dæmons is explained. And the connection between what kind of person someone is and the form their dæmon takes is one that I found interesting. Much like in the world we inhabit, what people look like isn't always what they would look like if their nature/their personality decided their looks. But in this world it is interesting that a dæmon can represent that, we can see their inner self reflected outwards in their dæmon. It was something I noticed with Mrs. Coulter and her monkey in the original trilogy. He was never named and was described as fearful and awful while she is described as extremely charming and beautiful. This becomes the case with a character in this book too.
I am hooked and hope the rest of this trilogy continues to charm and scare and entertain.
(Finished May 17, 2020)
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