Scan barcode
A review by radomu
The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman
4.0
This is probably the longest novel that Philip Pullman has ever written, and certainly the longest in the His Dark Materials series. And the length speaks volumes: it takes Lyra's world to places that none of the previous books has explored and makes it feel much larger and more complicated than it ever was. Like the Amber Spyglass, it's epic, but in a completely different way.
Different parts of the book feel distinct in both mood and genre, and every chapter contains developments that are unique and significant enough to leave you reflecting on their implications to the wider plot. Like the previous volume, La Belle Sauvage, some parts of the book meanders towards the surreal and absurd. Others will make you feel genuinely disturbed.
And this is where it differs from the original trilogy. Don't buy this book for your child. It was clearly written with a more mature audience in mind, for people like myself who've read the original trilogy as a child and are revisiting the world as an adult. Some parts of it are so dark that it might leave you traumatised.
Rather than being another polemic against organised religion and dogmatism, this particular book is equally critical of the spirit of cold-hearted rationality promoted by some secular thinkers, as well as, oddly enough, postmodernism. Lyra, being 20 and a student at Oxford, is naturally susceptible to the ideas of these new charismatic thinkers, which causes problems for her later on. This reminded me of when I used to idolise people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins at age 18, believing that everything that came out of their mouth was the truth. And this, for me, is where the book shines the most: it's capacity to allow for self-reflection.
Like all of Pullman's novels, The Secret Commonwealth is a fantasy novel at heart but ultimately has a much deeper purpose. Its literary merits, however, don't detract from its page-turning plot.
Different parts of the book feel distinct in both mood and genre, and every chapter contains developments that are unique and significant enough to leave you reflecting on their implications to the wider plot. Like the previous volume, La Belle Sauvage, some parts of the book meanders towards the surreal and absurd. Others will make you feel genuinely disturbed.
And this is where it differs from the original trilogy. Don't buy this book for your child. It was clearly written with a more mature audience in mind, for people like myself who've read the original trilogy as a child and are revisiting the world as an adult. Some parts of it are so dark that it might leave you traumatised.
Rather than being another polemic against organised religion and dogmatism, this particular book is equally critical of the spirit of cold-hearted rationality promoted by some secular thinkers, as well as, oddly enough, postmodernism. Lyra, being 20 and a student at Oxford, is naturally susceptible to the ideas of these new charismatic thinkers, which causes problems for her later on. This reminded me of when I used to idolise people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins at age 18, believing that everything that came out of their mouth was the truth. And this, for me, is where the book shines the most: it's capacity to allow for self-reflection.
Like all of Pullman's novels, The Secret Commonwealth is a fantasy novel at heart but ultimately has a much deeper purpose. Its literary merits, however, don't detract from its page-turning plot.