This book turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag for me. While I thoroughly loved His Dark Materials, I’d be lying if I said that this series isn’t starting with a couple of problems. I’m not going to talk about the overall arching story, as it’s not completed yet, nor will I talk about La Belle Sauvage because this review is about The Secret Commonwealth. Although reviews for this book are overwhelmingly five stars, there are a couple of one stars that are worth noting. I’ll start by saying that if you have any issues with the f-bomb or deadly violence in a book like this it won’t be for you—but if you’re reading my blog, I’m going to assume that it’s not. The book is certainly aimed at an older audience, and I can see where issues can arise when one tries to take a children’s story and try to adult it up a bit. Could it be like how child actors and actresses have difficulty transitioning into other roles? I have no idea.
I’m going to start with the issues that I found in the book so that you’ll have a chance to bow out if this doesn’t sound like something that’s going to compel you to read. I think that the main issue with the book was the POV. I think it can be difficult to maintain tension when the perspective of the story is watered down with so many different points of view. This isn’t to say that I don’t like multiple points of view, I think they can add a great deal of depth to the overall story that would otherwise be lost.
However, in this particular case, I believe that because it’s a different series, and there has been so much storytime that has lapsed between one and two this almost seems to be a standalone in some regards. Apart from the strong connection that we have with Lyra—from the other series— and Malcolm, there is very little that connects this book to La Belle Sauvage or His Dark Materials. And let’s not forget that Lyra was a baby in the first book of the series so that further disconnects from everything else. That being said, when there are as many POV’s that are used in a story like this I can understand when a reader would refer to it as a carousel of characters.
The other issue that the book seems to have—I believe—stemmed from this idea of trying to move a child actor/actress into an adult story. I could be completely out in the left-field here, but that’s the sense that I get. I think there are two things to take into consideration with this: the author’s voice, paired with the adult themes that the story tries to grasp. And our memory of Lyra I believe could make this transition difficult for some people. Although there are no graphic details, I do want to point out that there is a suicide, and an attempted rape in the story. As I said, there aren’t any explicit details of this, but you still know what is happening.
The last thing I’ll say has to do with the romantic interest between Malcolm and Lyra to which some have referred to as creepy. I think the issue here stems from how disconnected the book is from the rest of the series and is further aggravated by the multiple POV’s in which the novel employs. Being that we don’t get too much insight into Malcolm from what’s happened between the time that he rescued Lyra twenty years ago, and aren’t allowed to participate in that change over time, the stark contrast can come across as a bit jarring to the reader.
With that being said, there is much to love about The Secret Commonwealth and it has everything that you would expect to find in a Philip Pullman book. First off, I’d like to talk about the themes. Where the first book had a heavy focus on religion, I thought this book brought a couple of new themes to light. The first one is that due to the events that took place during His Dark Materials Lyra and Pan are now struggling with one another, which stems from philosophy. Lyra’s been reading books by a couple of authors which has caused strife between the two of them. One of them saying that daemons don’t exist, and the other one saying that it doesn’t matter either way because there’s no such thing as truth. Another large theme that I noticed was that there was another large entity that comes in to give them trouble, which I think has to do with what happens when government becomes too large and takes too much control. I found all of this to be delightful—perhaps delightful’s the wrong word but I think you know what I mean.
Also, the world itself was quite amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed the adventure that could be found throughout the novel. With part of the setup being that Lyra and her get into an argument, Pan takes off and Lyra has to travel across the world to find him. This was the part of the story that I enjoyed most, the adventure and discovery of new worlds and I think if the book would have focused more here then it would have been absolutely phenomenal.
Along her adventures, she comes across the Gyptians and Farder Corum, and we’re reunited with some characters that we remember. This is also where the secret commonwealth comes into play—which turns out to be a bit enigmatic but is heavily connected to the overarching theme with Lyra’s and her struggles, having read all those philosophy books. Considering, however, how the other POV’s effected the storyline it left less time for world-building that otherwise could have fit in. I should also mention the other half of the setup up involved a murder in which, I believe, is part of a plan for The Magisterium to destroy anything that could be protecting Lyra. Malcolm finds himself involved here trying to figure it all out and what it all means. The book ends with a cliffhanger, which should be resolved in Central Asia where the story is intended to conclude.
