The A-plot is tangled with and woven through the B-plot, where we follow Malcolm, the protagonist of previous volume La Belle Sauvage. 'The Secret Commonwealth' is a book full to bursting with folklore, science, religion, reason, that which connects and that which isolates. Lyra, who's lost her home to schemers and around whom plots are circling, goes in search of Pan. He has decided their problem is Lyra's missing imagination, her unquestioning devotion to reason (under the influence of two authors' work he despises but she admires), so he's going to find her imagination and bring it back. But Pan and Lyra are able to separate and, after an argument leaves them both hurting, Pan chooses to leave. It's agony for most daemons to be more than a few feet away from their person hurt one, the other feels the pain kill one, they both perish. Ten years have passed since the events of the His Dark Materials trilogy, and there is a rift between Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon. But The Secret Commonwealth's greatest strength is the care it takes to center the story in the individual the importance it grants to what's in our heroes' hearts. ( Though Pullman might find that comparison paltry.)

This book feels like a response to the darkness in our time as Lord of the Rings feels like a response to the darkness in J. I was fascinated, occasionally contemptuous as the story had me siding with one character over another, and always curious to know more about the world and what would happen and always in awe of Pullman. It's an adventure, global in scope and epic in shape, but it's also a story about being unsettled in one's life, about living with consequences, of what happens to us when we are estranged from ourselves. It is a tale of spies and philosophies and wit, of factions vying for control of the truth - or the public's opinion of the truth. Philip Pullman's The Secret Commonwealth is a big novel full of big ideas, big characters and big sorrows. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Secret Commonwealth Author Philip Pullman

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