Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - The Secret Commonwealth

Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

20 reviews

polly_lilith's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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carlyalynnsia's review against another edition

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amehlia's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

“Evil can be unscrupulous, and good can’t. Evil has nothing to stop it doing what it wants, while good has one hand tied behind its back. To do the things it needs to do to win, it’d have to become evil to do ‘em.”

After reading La Bell Sauvage, I was excited to continue my journey through The Book of Dust with Pullman’s second instalment in the series, The Secret Commonwealth. This story reunites us with Lyra, now 20-years old and studying at St Sophia’s College, whose relationship with her dæmon Pantalaimon has become strained by her interest in the works of philosopher Simon Talbot and novelist Gottfried Brande, who both argue that dæmons are merely figments of the imagination and denounce anything that isn’t logical or attributable to pure reason. Meanwhile, the Magisterium remains a powerful enemy, and trouble is brewing further east over a rare rose known only to grow in the desert of Karamakan, and the industry of growing the roses and extracting their oil is under threat from mysterious men from the mountains.

The story opens with Lyra in Oxford, and although Lyra is different in many ways to her child self, it was enchanting to be reunited with her in a familiar setting, and I quickly became immersed in the book. Lyra and Pan’s difficult relationship was portrayed very well, and was interesting to read about because it echoed that relationship you sometimes have with yourself when you’re going through something difficult or a period of change. You feel disconnected and dissatisfied, but you can’t pinpoint why. I thought Pullman portrayed this feeling very well through Lyra and Pan as they begin another adventure that places new demands on each of them. I enjoyed the plot, and whilst others have criticised it for being too complicated or containing too many characters and side plots, I don’t think this detracts too much from the overall feel of the book. I read it quite quickly considering it’s over 700 pages long, so the plot and characters were always fresh in my mind and I didn’t find it too difficult to follow. If you’re taking this book at a slower pace, you might find the plot and it’s sub-narratives quite confusing. Compared to La Belle Sauvage, I felt that the pace and plot was more consistent, but less interesting in places. With the first book, I was hooked in the first half but found the second half a bit of a drag, whereas with this book my intrigue was satisfied throughout the whole thing, but I wasn’t enthralled by it.

This book started out as a strong 5⭐️, but there are a number of things I really didn’t like about this book. There’s a pretty unnecessary love story underlying parts of the narrative, which I’ll go into more detail here:

I loved Malcom Polstead in the first book, and was excited to see him reintroduced, but why, oh why did Pullman have to make him fall in love with Lyra? She is 11-years his junior, he knew her as a baby, and mentored her as a teenager. This aspect of the book I absolutely hate. Malcom should be a guardian figure to Lyra, more of an older-brother, not someone with a creepy infatuation with, essentially, a child. Pullman has to convince the reader that this sort of relationship would be okay, but if you have to write an extended piece of dialogue justifying why you’ve chosen to make a 31-year old man fall in love with a 20-year old woman, you probably know that there’s something inherently wrong with it. Also, why does everyone else in this book seem to know about Malcolm’s feelings considering he only just recognised them himself? And why does no one condemn them? At least twice in the book someone, totally unprompted, comments something like “you’re in love with her, aren’t you?” as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, as if they actually expected it. What was the point of reintroducing Alice in this story, writing her to be a widow just so that she could be Mrs. Lonsdale, and making it seem as if she and Malcom are involved in some way, just to flip the script and have Malcom develop a completely inappropriate infatuation with Lyra? This facet genuinely irritates me, and left it impossible for me to rate this book 5⭐️.

Secondly, there’s a pretty graphic sexual assault that takes place towards the end of the book. Maybe it’s because I recently finished reading another book with a sexual assault, but this part was upsetting for two reasons. First, it’s a reality many of us have experienced in our lives, and when your form of escapism serves to remind you of such experiences, it no longer serves its purpose. Second, fiction does not always have to reflect reality. Most women do not want to read about other women being assaulted by men. Can we at least let fictional women exist without the threat of violence by the hands of men?

Apart from those two aspects of the book, this probably would’ve been a strong 4.5⭐️ or maybe even a 5⭐️. Of course, the ending was pretty dissatisfying, but this book is a bridge between the first and the last, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m interested to see how Pullman is going to pull everything together in the final book of the trilogy. Overall, this was generally an enjoyable read apart from a couple of aspects, and I’m looking forward to the final instalment of The Book of Dust.

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nytephoenyx's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

I think when he was writing The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman just really wanted all the fans of His Dark Materials to shut up and stop asking what happened to Lyra next. After teasing longtime fans and readers with La Belle Sauvage, finally a book about Lyra Silvertongue is announced and the story we get is self-important and depressing. If you’re a fan of The Golden Compass and you haven’t read the gigantic tomes in the decades-later follow-up series yet… well, you’re welcome. I’ve done it for you so you don’t have to suffer.

First of all, the plot was… boring, I guess? There were a few different storylines running simultaneously through different POVs and I personally did not find any of them interesting. In fact, I’m a bit perplexed as to what kind of story Pullman wanted to tell, and further confused as to why it’s all Lyra’s story again. It’s almost as though both La Belle Sauvage and The Secret Commonwealth were worldbuilding notes that Pullman had about Oxford and its world… but he wanted to loop in Lyra because he wanted to draw the readers of His Dark Materials into his new series. Realistically, I believe both the novels in The Book of Dust would be better served in the same world of His Dark Materials but following different characters.

Pantelimon is absolutely correct in saying Lyra has lost her imagination. As a character, she seems to have lost more than that. I understand that the character has grown up, but she feels like an entirely different character than the one we left in The Amber Spyglass. She has lost her curiosity and interest in the world. She’s lost her drive and optimism. Her entire journey in His Dark Materials did not take this from her, but going to school has. This, in particular, made me feel like the story should have belonged to a different character.

There were a couple aspects that made me a bit uncomfortable, writing-wise. There are scenes regarding homosexuality that I don’t feel Pullman was classified to write, and frankly, made me cringe a bit with the way he spoke about it. It’s one of those things that, in reading, it feels more like he was expressing his own (problematic) understanding of the LGBTQIAP+ community. From a social perspective, I hated that he said one could learn to love a woman after a while. From a worldbuilding perspective, it seemed like he went against how he explained daemons in his world earlier. There were also scenes where Lyra was wearing a niqāb, and Pullman was not subtle in how he wrote Lyra behavior felt like a judgment on the logic of niqābs and hijabs and I just… didn’t… like it. Finally, there is an attempte rape scenes that, again, I don’t feel Pullman was qualified to write. I dunno. Maybe I’m being overly critical. Maybe I’m reading into something that isn’t there. Either way, I didn’t like it. If he consulted outside sources or had sensitivity readers or any of that, it certainly isn’t references in the Author’s Note.

The story doesn’t become interesting until the last half hour of the twenty hour audiobook. Most the story is a journey, but Pullman seems to have lost his skill at making that journey interesting without making it vulgar. I just… don’t think I’m compelled enough to read the final book because both of the previous two have been far too long and went little to nowhere. I’m just not invested enough in the story to waste more hours of my life seeing the ending.

I love, I love His Dark Materials. But I can’t in good conscious recommend either La Belle Sauvage or The Secret Commonwealth. I was hoping the series was going to get better, but it hasn’t. If you have fond memories of His Dark Materials, I’m inclined to recommend avoiding this one as not to tarnish what you know of Lyra. Enjoy her adventure, you don’t need to know what happens next. Your time is more valuable than that.

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annevh's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

2.5

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lumberelk's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I think the chapter featuring the

group sexual assault of Lyra

(the graphic content warning listed below) could've been left out entirely.

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hanathemah's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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bonanzafamine's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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annabella's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

2.5

Content Warnings

cursedepub's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

The thing I regret most about this book is that Pullman does very well setting up the mystery and conspiracy. I genuinely do want to find out what happens next even though I was too angry at this book to keep reading at times.

The thing I next regret most about this book is that the conflict of self-image that Lyra embodies in it (growing up and becoming anxious, self-hating, and distressingly ordinary, especially compared to what one once was) should be incredibly compelling and thought-provoking, but it just falls flat entirely. More than anything else reading this book felt like being lectured about not losing my childhood sense of wonder in a way that really made me want to lose my childhood sense of wonder just out of spite. I could not help but feel that ever since The Subtle Knife, Pullman has been dedicated to diminishing the character of Lyra Silvertongue from her glory in The Golden Compass, just for the sake of it.

I find it very funny that the novel features an author that is described as being very clever and enthralling with his prose but ultimately saying very little of value. Pullman's prose is excellent, of course.

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