The Secret Commonwealth: The Book of Dust Volume Two
PHILIP PULLMAN
(DAVID FICKLING BOOKS in association with PENGUIN, 704 PP, £20)
Tablet bookshop price £18 • Tel 020 7799 4064
Philip Pullman’s trilogy, “His Dark Materials”, revealed a writer able to discuss serious moral questions in the context of a fantasy adventure for all ages. Pullman has warned that his new novel is made of even “darker materials” and that he is now dealing with a grown-up heroine with adult concerns. Readers might therefore be forgiven for expecting something grim and turgid; but, while The Secret Commonwealth is long, sometimes painful and occasionally violent, it is a storming read.
The universe is familiar Pullman territory: an alternative reality where each person shares consciousness with an animal “daemon”, where countries run on steam and gas, where fanaticism flourishes and religions can be powerful forces not always for good (not so different from our world then). The protagonist, Lyra – a baby and a child in previous books – is now 20 and studying history at St Sophia’s College, Oxford. Lyra’s daemon, a pine marten, is able to separate from his person (unlike ordinary daemons); and during a nocturnal wander he witnesses a murder. Someone – or some organisation – is intent on destroying the victim’s research into the effects of a particular form of rose oil only found in Central Asia or possibly further East.