Philip Pullman's bestselling His Dark Materials trilogy (1995-2000), has sold 18 million copies. Many Pullman fans were disappointed when the projected movie series did not eventuate after The Golden Compass (2007) starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.
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This cancellation was partly due to criticism from US religious sources, with the movie being described as "the stuff of nightmares" by the Catholic Herald.
Good news come with the £50 million BBC TV Dark Materials series, starring Dafne Keen as the child Lyra, Ruth Wilson as Mrs Coulter and James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, which will be on Foxtel in November,
Pullman's main character Lyra Belacqua was an 11-year-old in the original trilogy. La Belle Sauvage (2017), the first volume of the Book of Dust trilogy, was a prequel, documenting how baby Lyra was saved from the deadly agents of the Magisterium, the authoritarian and repressive church power.
Her main saviour, inter alia, was a young boy Malcolm Polstead, an 11-year-old living with his parents at the Trout pub outside Oxford.
Now, readers jump forward in time with the whopping 700 page The Secret Commonwealth, which, within a week of publication, toppled Margaret Atwood's The Testaments from the number one spot on the British Bookseller list
There is much, in Pullman's early pages, on the alternate Oxford University, including hints of his dislike at the commodification of universities, personified in the new Magisterium linked Master of Jordan College.
Lyra is now a 20-year-old student living in Jordan College and Dr Malcolm Polstead is a 31-year-old Fellow and part-time agent of the Oakley Street Secret Service.
There is much, in Pullman's early pages, on the alternate Oxford University, including hints of his dislike at the commodification of universities, personified in the new Magisterium linked Master of Jordan College.
In the series, people have a daemon, an external soul in animal form. Pullman has said "In The Amber Spyglass, Lyra and her daemon (Pantalaimon) learn to separate, which comes at a cost. A daemon is not a pet, it's part of yourself".
The Secret Commonwealth reveals the growing pains of Lyra's transition to adulthood. Malcolm's daemon refers to Lyra as having, "Le soleil noir de la mélancolie". She is troubled after reading books which emphasise the rational and illogical.
Pan tells her that she has become "cautious ... anxious ... pessimistic . . I just can't stand watching you turn into this rancorous reductive monster of cold logic". To Pullman, intolerant rationality is as dangerous as intolerant theism.
Lyra and Pan are now constantly arguing, a relationship which deteriorates dramatically after Pan witnesses the murder of an Oxford botanist who had been investigating rose essence in central Asia, a sprinkling of which allows the eye to perceive the mysterious Dust.
Plan and Lyra become physically, as well as spiritually separated, with the book becoming a series of quest narratives. Pan searches for what will help Lyra recover "her imagination", as well as searching for a mysterious Central Asian daemon "Blue Hotel'.
Lyra leaves Oxford to search for Pan and Malcolm, who has more of an affection for Lyra that he would care to admit, searches after Lyra. Pullman's legacy to Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, is clearly evidenced throughout the text.
Meanwhile the agents of the Magisterium, now dominated by the Machiavellian Marcel Delamere, Mrs Coulter's brother, track all three as they travel, not without considerable danger, across Europe and Central Asia.
Pullman says, "Their journey is going to take them far from their homeland towards a mysterious desert in central Asia, where they hope to find, at last, the secret of Dust".
The Waterstones bookshop website in Britain warns that The Secret Commonwealth is "not suitable for younger readers ". It depends how young. Lyra swears a lot including the F word, there is graphic violence, an attempted gang rape of Lyra and references to Lyra's awakened sexuality.
Pullman has said that "it really isn't a book for children . . . I think the people who are likely to buy this are probably grown-up, and they probably know what they're in for".
There are also major contemporary issues reflected in the narrative. Pullman has said, "Reason on its own is a kind of devilish thing. Any political power that rules without being questioned is dangerous-the will of the people". References to the various current authoritarian regimes here.
More real-world parallels come with events involving a ruthless global multinational corporation, people trafficking of refugees and religious dogmatism. "Repression in the name of religion has become more dominant, so we need to be more and more on our guard", says Pullman.
The Secret Commonwealth is a riveting narrative ,full of imaginative wonder and underpinned by a strong moral purpose.
A character named Nur Huda el-Wahabi, named after a schoolgirl who died in the London Grenfell Tower fire, appears on the last page.
She will clearly pay a part in Lyra's dangerous journey across the central Asian deserts in the now eagerly awaited final volume of the trilogy.
Pullman says, "If I am spared to write the third book, all will be made clear, I hope". This reader can't wait.
- The Book of Dust, Volume Two: The Secret Commonwealth, by Philip Pullman. David Fickling Books, $32.99.