** Caution: this post may contain spoilers **

This is the long-awaited and much anticipated companion to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, and after the 17 year wait, I have been apprehensive about the book’s release. I had to buy it on the day of release, and planned how and where I would do so and I timed my reading so that I could begin it on the day of publication. But what if it didn’t deliver?

I was not disappointed. This is a book that from the first page to the last is Philip Pullman at his narrative best. Where at times, The Amber Spyglass could be over-complicated in comparison to the original Northern Lights, this was both dark and starkly relevant to the times that we now live, and a funny and engaging portrait of a world that’s not quite like our own.

The book is split into two halves. The first, mainly hops between opposite banks of the Thames from The Trout Inn to Godstow Nunnery (with occasional visits to nearby Jericho). The second, is an Odyssey-like quest that carries the reader south to London at the speed of a great flood pitching our hero from one danger to another. This is a classic adventure story, but a an adventure story with something to say about our own world.

If I had to make criticism of La Belle Sauvage it would be that at times it doesn’t read like the prequel (that it essentially is) to Northern Lights that it is. When Northern Lights was published in 1995, both it and it’s sequel The Subtle Knifemade it clear that Lyra’s Oxford and our Oxford were closely linked in time and space with just a few small but noticeable differences. They also read very much as contemporary books to the mid-1990s, and so this one, set 10 years before the events of Northern Lights should really be set in the mid-1980s. This book though, I find at least, reads very much like its set in the here and now of Lyra’s Oxford and not a that of a period piece set 30 years in the past.

The flood too, when it comes, is devastating – the worst that Oxford has seen in years – but even so I would expect some parts of the oldest, most central parts to be sitting like an island amongst the flood water. The geography of Oxford though is that is on a surprisingly large hill but no reference is made to this in how the river floods the city. And if it is as devastating as it it seems you would expect people to be talking about it long into the time of Lyra’s childhood in the other books.

These are minor grumbles though in an otherwise excellent book that has been a friend to me for a too short a time, and I can barely wait for the next instalment.

Northern Lights

With the publication of book one of the long-awaited The Book of Dust in October, and 22 years after I first read, and was blown away by, this book, I decided it was time for a re-read. This is a book set in a world that is very much like our own, and starts in an Oxford that is almost like ours except that we all have dæmons that shadow us.

Like all good stories, this is one that pulls you in from the very beginning, through the streets of Oxford and over the roofs of Jordan College. There is the alethiometer too – an object that has to be one of the finest literary creations of the 20th century – that enables Lyra to read what is happening in the world.

When her friend is kidnapped by Gobblers the action shifts to London, and to the waterways of England, before moving still further to the north, and to Svalbard where armoured bears roam, and experiments with Dust are carried out.

Book One was always my favourite of the trilogy, whilst I liked book two, and respected book three at the same time as getting overwhelmed by the ideas behind it. In contrast, Northern Lights is pure story and adventure, and a joy to read and to immerse yourself into.

It’s possible that I might have heard a review on BBC Radio 4’s Kaleidoscope but I don’t think so. What I do remember is taking it home and starting to read it immediately and being hooked immediately by the characters, the settings, the sense of danger. This was a world just like ours – all too like ours – but one where people have dæmons. Where the rest of His Dark Materials may have got complicated, Northern Lights was pure story, and a gripping one at that. The question is would I feel the same 22 years on…?

I’m still beguilded by the cover as a thing of beauty to revere (I covered the book jacket recently to protect it), and one chapter in, the story is every bit as readable as it was before. So I think, the answer, is yes!

Today wasn’t all bad though. I learnt some sign language from Kirsty, which was fun. I can now ask someone what there name is and tell them mine. I probably can’t understand anything they say to me, but you know, baby steps and all…

Had a particularly good blow at Abingdon Concert Band tonight, which included playing mostly the right notes in the mostly the right order and almost at the right speed. I even played piccolo in not only Beauty and the Beast but also Pirates of the Caribbean and was heard in a not objectionable way. Which is encouraging. And hey, as a band we were even playing so well that Sunday’s extra-rehearsal has been canceled. Here’s to a nice weekend to get out in the country instead!

Due to a high solar storm, the Northern Lights are apparently particularly active tonight. I’ve found this really cool website for forecasting where and when you will see them. You can even sign up for twitter text alerts for it.