The Secret Commonwealth

The Book of Dust Volume Two

736 pages

English language

Published April 4, 2020 by Penguin Books, Limited.

ISBN:
978-0-241-37335-4
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(46 reviews)

4 editions

Review of 'The Secret Commonwealth' on 'Goodreads'

WARNING: THIS IS HALF A BOOK

I was quite furious when I got to the end and realised there is literally no resolution to any story threads, it just stops at a completely arbitrary chapter. Infuriating, you've been warned.

Now that we're past that part and onto the actual content of the book - it's mostly great. Love that Pullman followed up Northern Lights with a direct rebuttal to anyone who took the series to mean rationalism is the be-all-end-all.

Will impatiently wait for the second half of the book.

Review of 'The Secret Commonwealth' on 'Goodreads'

This may be my favourite novel out of Pullman's entire body of work. It certainly engaged me at a level I have not felt since I first read The Golden Compass (/Northern Lights), and while that struck me as a wonderful book for young adults (and I have reread it several times long past my own youth), it always had an air of the Manichean simplicity that children's literature is often disparaged for exhibiting. The Secret Commonwealth does not simplify anything - in fact it takes all that was wonderful about the other books in the series and elaborates and questions every assumption those worlds created. There is something of Graham Greene here - the moral complexity and unsolvable difficulties of adulthood, mixed with a bit of intrigue and spectacular characterisation. Pullman takes Lyra, Malcolm, and others on a complex journey that kept me enraptured from the beginning through all …

Review of 'Secret Commonwealth' on 'Goodreads'

I might not have very different things to say to augment the critical reviews of this book which already exist, but I am not going to preface my review with any version of "I love [a:Philip Pullman|3618|Philip Pullman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1614625372p2/3618.jpg] but...". Looking at this book isolatedly, it is by far the most disappointing book I have read this year.

Comparisons with 'His Dark Materials' will be rife, but let us take a moment to step back and focus on just this book. The events of [b:La Belle Sauvage|34128219|La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust, #1)|Philip Pullman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1498930382l/34128219.SX50.jpg|14190696] are several years in the past, and the events of 'His Dark Materials' have taken place in the interim. In [b:The Secret Commonwealth|19034943|The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust #2)|Philip Pullman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1563043403l/19034943.SY75.jpg|27058954] we are introduced to 'young adult' Lyra Belacqua/ Silvertongue, now in college. Lyra has been singularly lucky all these years - …

Review of 'The Secret Commonwealth' on 'Goodreads'

Still such an immersive world to step into, twenty years later, and I still love Lyra and Pan fiercely, though with the former it's hard to say why, as adult Lyra lacks so many of the qualities that made her loveable.

The glaring holes in the plot and the huge exposition dumps annoyed me, as did some of the more problematic aspects (the bad scary east with its terrorist 'men from the mountains') but it was satisfying reading the evils of the corporate neoliberal university invading the dreaming spires of Jordan College, as that's been the reality of universities since Northern Lights was published.

The theme of the human-daemon connection/separation remains as affecting as ever, and I've been stroking my wee dog Rowan more often that usual while reading. I don't know if there's been many psychoanalytic readings of His Dark Materials/The Book of Dust, but the retro quality of …

Review of 'Secret Commonwealth' on 'Goodreads'

Nearly 700 pages, but that wasn't a burden, instead I was disappointed that it came to an end. As to be expected with Philip Pullman, we are treated to the plot of a master story-teller, complex characters and sideways thought-provoking insights into our own society. The big difference with other books in the previous Dust trilogy (His Dark Materials) and the other book of the Book of Dust is that this time the protagonist (Lyra) is an adult. That was the only aspect which was a little disappointing, it still feels like she is a little girl, rather outside of the adult world. Having said that, it made the continuity with the previous book smoother and it didn't distract from the story. Bottom line; I'm waiting with anticipation for the third and final part.

Review of 'The Secret Commonwealth' on 'Goodreads'

[Plot warning: Cliffhanger! Content warnings: Rape, suicide.]

Starts off a bit slow, but once it gets its sea-legs it goes to some very dark places.

Reading this brought up a lot of sadness and grief for my pet, which makes perfect sense in hindsight since so much of it revolves around dæmon separation. There's a lot going on in this metaphor and Pullman is teasing out some interesting implications from it.

The more magical-realist bits about the titular Secret Commonwealth (and the interlude in Prague) are really solid. Some of the other, less-magical bits don't seem to hold water quite as well... but we'll see where it goes. Pacing is kind of all over the place and I didn't find the villains (whether people or philosophies) entirely convincing.

I am also very uneasy about the way this book seems to be setting up a romantic relationship between a 31-year-old professor …

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