The Book of Dust Honors the Legacy of Philip Pullman’s Masterpiece

And yet today, Lyra’s story continues, more than 20 years after it began. The Book of Dust, Vol. One: La Belle Sauvage, the first in a planned trilogy, takes us back to before we first met Lyra, bounding across the rooftops of Jordan College in Oxford, to delve further into the scientific mysteries that define her world, and to introduce us to another remarkable child whose actions will resound through all possible worlds. It’s a story you didn’t know needed to be told, until you’ve read it, and you realize: yes, there is more to discover in this remarkable setting. There are more people to fall in love with. New questions to be answered. A new adventure to relish.
We begin, again, in Oxford—or on its outskirts, in a small inn called the Trout, where an 11-year-old boy named Malcolm Polstead lives unremarkably with his parents, helping them serve customers and assisting the standoffish kitchen girl, Alice. One night, three strangers visit the Trout, and in the best tradition of young Philip Pullman protagonists, the observant Malcolm overhears them talking of mysterious, momentous events: a baby has been delivered to the priory across the river, to be cared for by the nuns, with whom Malcolm is friendly (because he is friendly with everyone). This child is special, it seems—there are whispers of a prophecy, of her scandalous, illegitimate birth to two noble persons. Malcolm is intrigued, not only by the gossip, but by the child: he’s never had a sibling, but has obviously always longed to be a brother. So he visits the nuns, and quickly falls in love with the baby, a girl named Lyra, with a funny little dæmon named Pantaliamon.
But there are greater intrigues afoot, though they all seem connected to the girl. Out one day in his faithful canoe, La Belle Sauvage, Malcolm sees a stranger arrested by black-clad men; when he later turns up dead, the boy is pulled into a conspiracy involving a long-simmering conflict between the oppressive Magisterium, the religious organization that holds undue sway over the government, and rebellious forces more inclined to trust science over faith. Both groups are racing to obtain any knowledge they can about a strange particle known as Dust, which each group believes could change the world forever. Malcolm becomes a sort of unwitting agent for the rebels, ferrying information to a kind professor named Dr. Hannah Relf, who assists in the effort through the study of an ancient device of unknown origin called an alethiometer. Meanwhile, officers of the church are nosing around town, enlisting Malcolm’s classmates as spies, seeking something—something to do with the baby. And then there’s the fierce, terrifying man with the hyena dæmon, cruel and seductive, operating out of his own dark purpose.

All the while, it has been raining, though no one quite believes the floods will come—save for Malcolm, who has listened to the wise words of the gyptians (who know everything about water) and has stocked his canoe with supplies. One terrible night, the rivers do rise, and Malcolm finds himself in the boat with Alice, the two of them the only ones who can keep Lyra safe, and deliver her to a new home—whether that’s with the scholars of Jordan College, or with her father, the imposing, oddly gentle Lord Asriel.
As soon as Malcolm boards the boat, the adventure begins in earnest, as he and Alice, baby in tow, embark on a wearying journey that’s the stuff of The Odyssey (as well as Edmund Spenser’s The Fairie Queene—let it never be said Pullman doesn’t respect classic literature), pursued by the near-demonic specter of the laughing hyena and its master. The children are borne helplessly from one strange situation to another, from the cellars of a house haunted by the spirits of murdered children, to a party on the grounds of an enchanted estate, where none of the revelers seem to be able to see them. The magic is stranger here than you remember it—there are fairies, yes, and river gods—until you remember that this is a world inhabited by those massive, intelligent polar bears.
The pacing is relentless—I can’t recall the last book I read that so resisted giving me an easy spot to stop and rest. But there is no rest for Alice and Malcolm, who carry out their mission with the clear-eyed determinedness of the young, untroubled by the moral complexities of their actions (until they aren’t—for this, too, is a book about crossing the threshold into maturity). And yet despite the darkness they face along the way, this is an oddly hopeful book, glittering with small, bright moments of beauty—shared rest around a warm campfire, the comfort of food after too long without, the spark of a growing friendship. Pullman is famously adverse to organized religion, but he has great faith in the inherent goodness of people. Malcolm and Alice, and the friends they meet along the way, are very good people at heart, even when they are forced to make difficult choices. I hope we get to see them all again, the next time we visit Lyra.
The Book of Dust, Vol. One: La Belle Sauvage is available now