Reviews with content warning for Trafficking - The Secret Commonwealth

Arghh! What a frustrating book... Firstly, it basically ends on an unfinished cliffhanger. Secondly, it started off superbly only to divebomb at the end.

The Secret Commonwealth is the second book in this trilogy by Phillip Pullman, following La Belle Sauvage, which I reviewed here.

Twenty years after the events of the first book, our previous protagonist Malcolm Polstead is now 31 years old and a college professor. Our deuteragonist Alice has also grown up and gone to work at the college. But most of the book instead follows Lyra, who is no longer the baby that Malcolm and Alice rescued, but a 20-year-old college scholar.

Having experienced the events of the His Dark Materials trilogy in her youth and sworn against the religious Magisterium, Lyra has grown into a cynical, skeptical adult. Without religion, she feels like the universe is cold, uncaring and meaningless - the "random jostling of atoms". Her romantic forays have turned into dead ends and her studies with the aleithiometer are a struggle. She even starts to believe a popular author's thesis that dæmons are "just imaginary".
Alienated by this cynical Lyra, her dæmon Pantalaimon begins to argue with her. The passages about their conflict are some of the best in the book: they not only reveal Pan and Lyra's feelings but also the philosophical discussions that we love to see in a Pullman novel. The audiobook narrator's performance elevates these sections even further.
Lyra's troubles continue when she discovers that the Magisterium knows about her existence at the college, and they are still trying to hunt her down. This made for a great inciting incident. And the bad guys involved are such slimy bastards, like

the new head of the college

, that I was seething on Lyra's behalf.

The novel continued on strongly until, bizarrely, Lyra and

Malcolm

develop a mutual unspoken crush on eachother. Putting their difference of

age

aside, I just didn't see the point of this mutual crush since it doesn't go anywhere. I would have understood it if it was used to show that

Lyra is still pining after Will (because Malcolm has parallels to Will), but ultimately realizes she has to move on and "build the Republic of Heaven where she is"

. But that's not what happened - the two are separated at a certain point in the story and that's it. No conclusion.

The other bizarre plot event was the attempted

sexual assault

on Lyra. This came off as really weird and inappropriate.

Most annoyingly, the ending of this book feels just as incomplete as the previous one. It's very much a "To Be Continued". For a book that's just under 700 pages, you would expect to have accomplished some kind of conclusion in that time, but no. This problem colours the entire ending of the book, which has Lyra still investigating secrets in an anticlimactic fashion rather than engaging in a showdown or final conflict.

Overall, I did enjoy the book and was interested to know what would happen next, but these issues definitely marred the narrative.

Content Warnings

norwegianforestreader's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

erinwolf1997's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

the_pysselfia's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Content Warnings

snuzzbobble's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.5

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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