64 pages • 2 hours read
Philip PullmanThe Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 21-25 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Flood”
Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary: “The Enchanted Island”
Malcolm tells Alice everything that happened in the priory, but he is so exhausted that he cannot paddle for long, and they tie the canoe up on a moonlit island. Malcolm wakes up hours later to a brightness that turns out to be the spangled rings in his vision. Once it has passed, he hears Alice speaking with another woman and smells the aroma of toast and coffee. However, Alice calls him “Richard,” so Malcolm knows they aren’t safe. The other voice belongs to Diania, a beautiful young woman who sits on the grass playing with Lyra. Alice pours Malcom coffee, telling him that the woman seems nice but also implying something is wrong. A cloud of blue butterflies surrounds the woman, but it’s not clear if one of them might be her dæmon.
When he has a free moment, Malcolm checks on the canoe, which is still sound, and finally opens the rucksack he took from Bonneville. The pack contains several academic papers and a wooden box that Malcolm has to puzzle out how to open. Inside, wrapped in black velvet, is an alethiometer. Malcolm is shocked and hides it immediately, wondering if it is the missing sixth instrument. When he rejoins the women, he sees Diania braiding flowers into Alice’s hair. Malcolm can tell that she is both embarrassed by and enjoying the attention, and Malcolm feels strange seeing Alice “becoming almost pretty” (368). He falls asleep again and wakes to Alice shaking his shoulder. She pulls him up to see Diania holding Lyra to her breast and nursing her.
Alice worries that Diania is a fairy woman trying to steal Lyra. Struck by a sudden idea, Malcolm takes the alethiometer out of the box and replaces it with a stone. He steps into the clearing and tells Diania they have to leave and take Lyra with them. She tells Malcolm that Lyra belongs to her now that the child has drunk her milk, and she will raise her to be a princess of Albion. He offers to trade her a treasure for the child, holding up the box containing the stone, but the fairy woman refuses. Next, Malcolm tells Diania that she can keep Lyra if she can guess how he and Alice came to be looking after the baby. On the third try, the woman guesses correctly, describing their flight from the priory in the canoe. However, she uses the fake names they have given her, so Malcolm tells her she has failed again. She drops Lyra, sobbing and wailing, and the trio escapes in the canoe.
Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary: “Resin”
As Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra continue to make their way to London, both the CCD and Oakley Street hunt for them. After eating the fairy woman’s food, Lyra sleeps soundly for hours, and neither Malcolm nor Alice feels hungry. Both are still plagued by feelings of guilt and fear about Bonneville. Alice confesses to Malcolm that Bonneville kissed her and told her she was beautiful, something a man had never said to her before, yet in the end, she says, he was full of “scorn and hate” (381). Malcolm tries to tell Alice she is pretty, but she laughs at him. He starts to tell her that they will reach London soon and be able to return home, but the thought of his parents makes Malcolm choke with sobs. Alice begins to cry, too, and they weep together for a while.
They sail on with no land in sight. Finally, Malcolm notices a change in the water’s current. There is a stream of faster-moving water that they have become caught in. The current is too strong to paddle out of, and it carries them toward an island where they can hear a rushing sound like a waterfall. Helpless, the canoe plunges down a waterfall into a dark cavern before coming out the other side. Alice is knocked unconscious but comes to as Malcolm ties up the canoe, and they find themselves in a beautiful garden in front of a large house where a party seems to be going on. Malcolm tidies the canoe and lays their things out to dry, then they walk toward the house. However, no matter how much they walk, they never appear to be any closer to the large house. Some of the party’s guests walk toward them but ignore the children as if they are not there.
They finally give up and return to the canoe. Malcolm makes a fire easily and fills their bottles with clear water from a nearby fountain. People continue to walk past them, and Malcolm takes a plate of food from a waiter. As people pass, Malcolm thinks he sees people he recognizes, and Alice says the same thing. Eventually, she and Lyra fall asleep. Even though it seems strange to him, Malcolm kneels next to Alice and observes her sleeping face. He wonders what it would be like to touch and kiss her face, but this also alarms him, so he gets up quickly.
He goes to check on the canoe and is shocked to find a crack in the hull. Malcolm cuts off a piece of the canvas rucksack and finds a cedar tree with a broken branch leaking resin. He climbs the tree to saturate the cloth with resin and looks out at the house from his perch. Looking the other way, he is stunned to see a wasteland of “crude shanties,” dirty puddles, and children with open sores. At the same time, Asta calls out to Malcolm; she has spotted Bonneville on the house’s terrace, in a wheelchair, surrounded by the party guests and advancing toward them.
Malcolm hurries down to repair the crack and wakes Alice. They pile into the canoe and launch back into the water, but they can hear the horrible laughter of Bonneville’s dæmon behind them. Malcolm paddles hard, but a huge set of iron doors blocks their way.
Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary: “Ancientry”
Malcolm examines the doors, thinking the river still flows under them, so there must be a way to open them. Alice shrieks before he can figure it out, and a huge head emerges from the water. A giant, holding a trident, looks down at the children. Malcolm asks him to open the gate, but the giant says he has strict instructions from Father Thames to keep them closed. Desperate, Malcolm tells the giant that Lyra is a princess of Albion, repeating the fairy woman’s words, and that they have orders from her father, “the King,” to take her safely to London. He holds up a page of mathematical equations from one of Bonneville’s papers as proof. The giant considers and agrees. Before they sail through, Malcolm asks what the garden is. The giant replies that it is a place for people to forget all the terrible things Malcolm saw on the other side of the fog bank.
The giant opens the doors, and Malcolm paddles back into the real world through a dark tunnel. Lyra and Alice fall asleep, and Malcolm ties the canoe up on a small island; it is exposed, but he is also desperate for rest. However, as he climbs out of the canoe, he is shocked by a voice behind him. He sees a woman dressed in black silk ribbons with flowers in her hair. She has no dæmon, and Malcolm is afraid. She introduces herself as Tilda Vasara, a witch queen, and tells Malcolm they can sleep safely and no one will see them while they are close to her. At that moment, a CCD boat floats past but doesn’t seem to see the little island. She tells Malcolm she has found what she was looking for and flies off. When Malcolm sleeps, he again dreams of the wild dogs.
Part 2, Chapter 24 Summary: “The Mausoleum”
The next morning, they continue floating, cold, tired, and hungry. They both sense they are being followed, but they can’t see anything when they look around. The CCD search boat appears from time to time, and the sky is threatening more rain. With no hope of outrunning the boat, they find a grassy space to hide in, but Alice is vehemently opposed to the place. She says it’s “horrible,” but they have nowhere else to go. The place is a graveyard, with a little mausoleum on top of the hill.
Malcolm leaves the canoe to search for wood, but everything is soaking wet. As a last resort, he breaks the lock on the mausoleum door and takes a dry coffin lid, apologizing profusely to its inhabitant. On his way back, he sees a shadow and instantly knows it is Bonneville. However, he tries not to worry Alice when he returns and lights a fire so they can feed and change the baby. They are too exhausted to travel further and have no choice but to stay where they are. When Lyra is fed, they retreat to the safety of the canoe’s tarpaulin. From outside, they hear Bonneville’s voice whisper Alice’s name. Both are shocked and terrified. A knife rips through the tarp, and Bonneville’s hand seizes Alice’s throat while his other gropes for Lyra. When he cannot find the baby, he grabs Alice’s dæmon and pulls him out as Alice shrieks and is forced to follow them into the night.
Malcolm cannot leave Lyra alone, but he hears desperate screams from Alice. Asta tells him to go, and she will stay with the baby, even though it is unbearably painful and traumatic for a person to be separated from their dæmon. Malcolm kisses Lyra, then cuddles his beloved dæmon and hurries out of the canoe. He feels his heart is being torn out, and he hates that he is causing Asta a similar pain. On the steps of the mausoleum, he finds Bonneville holding Alice down by her wrists, her dæmon held tight in the hyena’s jaws. Malcolm is horrified to see Alice being restrained and attacked. It is heavily implied that Alice is being raped by Bonneville. Malcolm hits Bonneville with the canoe’s paddle, but not strongly enough. Bonneville laughs at him, and Malcom feels his strength surge. He strikes the hyena dæmon three times, then turns the paddle back on Bonneville, beating the man until he lies dead and his dæmon vanishes.
Malcolm is immediately overcome by exhaustion. He and Alice are both covered in blood and shakily drag Bonneville’s body down to the water, where the current pulls it away. Lyra is asleep in the canoe. Malcolm is reunited with Asta, and they all lay down to sleep.
Part 2, Chapter 25 Summary: “A Quiet Rode”
The flood has devastated southern England and all the authorities are caught up in “dealing with the chaos” (429). However, the CCD and Oakley Street are still searching tirelessly for Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra. There is a “sense of strangeness and unreality” about the flood (429), and one of Oakley Street’s gyptian guides suggests that the weather is also connected to interior states of mind.
Meanwhile, Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra are weakened by their ordeal. Malcolm feels “sadder, more guilty, much older” (431) after his separation from Asta, Alice is still bloodied from her ordeal, and Lyra’s cheeks are pink with fever. Malcolm almost breaks down when he sees that the canoe’s paddle is broken. He despairs, wondering how he will fix it, but Alice speaks to him encouragingly, and he reluctantly returns to the mausoleum for more dry wood. They take care of Lyra as best they can and then set sail again. On their journey, they stop and receive supplies and medicine, but must keep going to avoid being caught or turned in.
Nearing London, the flood waters have been contending with ocean tides to create water that “roiled and seethed in a wild confusion” (438). Oakley Street and the CCD are patrolling the dangerous waters, looking for La Belle Sauvage. The little canoe struggles in the violent current. Malcolm paddles as best he can, but he can feel the boat groaning and threatening to break apart. Suddenly, a powerboat crashes up alongside them. There is chaos: wind, rain, waves, and the sound of gunshots. Another boat comes up along the other side of the canoe, and a deep, familiar voice shouts at Malcolm to pass up the baby. Malcolm recognizes Lord Asriel and yells at Alice to obey him. Asriel lifts Lyra, and strong hands reach down for Malcolm and Alice. The first boat smashes against the canoe again, and it breaks apart. Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra cling together safely on Asriel’s boat as Asriel shouts at them, demanding to know what they “were playing at” (444). Alice jumps up and yells at Asriel, telling him all Malcolm has done to keep her and Lyra safe. Malcolm listens to her, wondering if he is dreaming, and tries to tell Asriel about their plan to take Lyra to Jordan College for scholastic sanctuary. However, someone calls out that Malcom has been shot, and he feels himself fainting.
When Malcolm wakes up, he is in a gyropter. His left arm is bandaged and painful, and Alice holds his right hand. He asks Alice where they are but soon falls back asleep. Lord Asriel gives Alice a headset and tells her that Lyra’s safety depends on Malcolm and Alice being “inconspicuous.” They must not speak of what happened to anyone. They soon land in front of Jordan College. Asriel takes his daughter and commands that Alice and Malcolm follow him. As they enter the college, Malcolm has an idea. He pulls the alethiometer out of the rucksack and tucks it into Lyra’s blankets, telling Asriel it is a gift for her.
The Master of Jordan College greets them. Asriel places Lyra in the man’s arms and speaks the sentence in Latin requesting sanctuary. The Master protests that the baby is not a scholar, and Asriel tells the man to “make her into one” (449). He tells the Master to “treasure” Malcolm and Alice, then leaves. Malcolm collapses with exhaustion, and Alice catches him as Lyra starts to cry.
Part 2, Chapters 21-25 Analysis
In the final chapters of the novel, the flood takes on mythical qualities, transporting Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra to strange places and introducing them to magical characters. While hunting for the children, Lord Nugent suspects the flood “had a stranger source than the weather because it had begun to cause curious illusions and to behave in unexpected ways” (378). On the one hand, the flood references the biblical story of Noah and his ark. In a world plagued by corruption, the flood represents a cleansing fresh start, with Malcolm, the symbol of pure goodness, the only one made aware of the impending disaster with just enough time to prepare his vessel. As the novel nears its conclusion, the flood’s ability to wash things away and reveal what has long been hidden becomes clear. The nature of humanity, both in Bonneville’s violent and criminal behavior and in Malcolm’s capabilities, highlight a part of the adult world that remained hidden from Malcolm prior to his adventure.
With its “sense of strangeness and unreality” (429), the flood seems to make walls between different worlds thinner. Malcolm tells Alice that the event feels like “a kind of between-time. Like a dream or something” (382). When he first wakes up on the island that belongs to the strange fairy woman, the warmth and presence of new leaves makes Malcolm feel like he has slept for “a whole season;” it is as if he has entered a new world. Later, the canoe is caught in a waterfall that carries the children to the strange garden that seems to have a mind of its own. The giant they meet describes it as “the place where people go when they forget” (404), suggesting it is somewhere separate from the world that Malcolm and Alice usually live in. This crossover with other realities mirrors the world-hopping nature of this universe, as established in His Dark Materials. As Malcolm and Alice face Maturity and the Loss of Innocence in many ways, they also come to terms with the fantastical, unexplainable aspects of life. They accept these characters and places without extensive concern or analysis, showing maturity in their ability to navigate new situations and quickly recover from new enemies and obstacles for Lyra’s sake. However, this also shows their remaining childhood innocence in their acceptance of these elements as fact in their world, which was previously much more grounded in reality.
The final place that Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra stop to rest is a graveyard, foreshadowing the death that will take place there and the dark conflict to come. Malcolm continues to mature, most notably through his sudden admiration of Alice’s body. He notices for the first time “her slim, tense legs, her slender waist, the slight swell of her hips” (399), confused by the strange feelings he experiences looking at her. However, Malcolm’s newfound strength is put to a final test when Bonneville appears and sexually assaults Alice. When faced with Bonneville, Malcolm summons the energy of, in his imagination, a wild pack of dogs. He thinks of the love he feels for Alice and Lyra, which gives him the strength to attack and kill Bonneville. To come to Alice’s aid, Malcolm also has to separate from Asta. Although it is an incredibly painful experience to be away from one’s dæmon, Malcolm manages it, illustrating a further step on his journey of self-discovery and maturity.
Malcolm’s relationship with sex and sexuality is a significant gage of maturity as the novel progresses. Malcolm begins the story with an indifference to girls, and he later learns of the sexual harassment Alice endures because of her gender. He witnesses Bonneville’s use of sex in the priory as a type of manipulation to get closer to Lyra and later becomes protective of and romantically interested in Alice. The final moment of this transformation towards maturity occurs when Malcolm must break up Bonneville and Alice as Bonneville rapes her. At the beginning of the novel, the tale of Lord Asriel’s murder of Mr. Coulter parallels Bonneville and Alice in terms of the justification of murder for the purposes of self-defense. This is something Malcolm initially questions and attempts to understand, though he eventually must commit murder himself to protect Alice and, by extension, Lyra and himself.
Malcolm is horrified when he encounters the rape, which is somewhat veiled in clues within Pullman’s writing for a young audience. Bonneville’s history of sexual assault, his advances towards Alice before the flood, his pinning of Alice onto the ground, her protesting screams, the sensual behavior of Bonneville’s dæmon during the act, the blood running down Alice’s leg, and Malcolm’s horror at what he describes as the “worst thing” he has ever witnessed, all point to the rape Alice experiences at the hands of Bonneville. The distance Pullman uses in describing this scene reflects Malcolm’s limited perspective, a boy who doesn’t yet have the language and experience to verbalize the horror he sees. However, he understands innately what is occurring, and moves to protect Alice at any cost. It is implied that Alice is traumatized by the event, but Malcolm is unable to fathom this particular trauma, generally upset by all he has experienced in his own murder of Bonneville and the trials he faced on the river. Alice, more mature than Malcolm for much of the story, must come to terms with this horror in silence as they finish their task of delivering Lyra. The novel introduces the intersection between maturity and gender in the comparison of Alice and Malcolm. Alice is exposed to sexual violence far sooner that Malcolm even understands sexuality conceptually, and she must navigate these traumatizing, complex issues alone by no fault of her own.
Although they defeat Bonneville, Malcolm and Alice are exhausted by their ordeal, and the rest of their journey to London is painful and difficult. They arrive at Jordan College “sodden, shivering, filthy, exhausted, bloody” (449). While the novel ends abruptly, it closes with an epigraph quoting the epic poem “The Faerie Queene,” by Edmund Spenser that suggests what comes next. The passage speaks of a vessel coming to rest for a time before embarking again “on the long voyage whereto she is bent” (451). This suggests that, having arrived at Jordan College, Lyra is safe. Her story will enter a quiet rest period before it resumes.
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By Philip Pullman
