At points, it almost reads as a cautionary tale for today's Brits and Americans as we're confronted with nationalism and populism teetering on tyranny. Pullman has been working on this book for years. And when a flood and a madman threaten Lyra's life, Malcolm and his friend Alice hop in his canoe and do everything they can to protect her. Malcolm's curiosity is piqued when three important men come to the inn asking about a baby living at the priory across the river. Malcolm, as Pullman described, is "liked when noticed, but not noticed much." He works at his family's inn on the Thames, and he is happiest in his canoe, the titular La Belle Sauvage. In this book, our hero is a boy named Malcolm Polstead. And while the first three books were spiritual and ethereal, this one is almost strictly material, Earth-bound. In this book, along with adventure and fantasy, we get a fairy tale and a spy thriller. Or maybe that's because this is a more focused, more grounded story. Maybe that's because we are experts by now, having traveled through this world for hundreds of pages. In this newest installment, The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust, Volume One), the levels of meaning seem closer to the surface.
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