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Lord Asriel's Review

Finally. After two weeks of waiting I finally received it. A cute little red book, featuring a nice cover image. Lyra's Oxford. The lone story, a outcast of The Book of Dust. Pullman's tribute to the city he loves.

When I first heard of Lyra's Oxford IO, lie many other loyal sraffies and Cttagazzeans (His Dark Materials fans), was surprised, since I had not expected this book. Philip Pullman had mentioned that there was to be a fourth His Dark Materials book, a companion novel to His Dark Materials, The Book of Dust. However, when Philip Pullman was writing The Book of Dust, there was a story he could not fit in. The reason for this is a mystery. Maybe it was because the story was to large, maybe it didn't fit the theme, or the purpose of the book, centring too much on Lyra.

- Or maybe it was all just a promotional stunt, something to whet our appetite for The Book of Dust. Maybe it was just a fancy cash-in. This thought crossed all of our minds when we heard the news, so on the one hand we were excited, and eagerly awaiting Lyra's Oxford, on the other hand we were all a bit sceptic, fearing a rushed book that would not follow the path of great writing Pullman pursued with His Dark Materials.

So it was with mixed feeling that I started reading the fourth instalment of His Dark Materials. It started in a familiar manner, with Lyra and Pantalaimon sitting on the roof of Jordan College. However, soon the peace is disturbed by the arrival of a huge flock of birds, who are chasing a dæmon. Lyra and Pan save the dæmon from the birds, and take it back to Lyra's room. That is when the story really starts. Half an hour later I had finished the book.

I looked at the postcards on the last two pages of the book with a feeling of amazement and confusion. I found it very disturbing that this little thirty paged book – that I had finished in thirty minutes – had such an effect on me.

Lyra's Oxford simply is a book like that, and it's truly as strange as Mr Pullman says in the introduction:

“This book contains a story and several other things. The other things might be connected to the story or they might not; they might be connected to stories that haven' appeared yet. It's not easy to tell. […] There are many things we haven't yet learned how to read. The story in this book is partly about that very process.”

It is not a real story. It is not a real book. It's a disjointed chapter, torn from a book set many years after HDM. That is, I believe, the reason why Pullman did not include this story in The Book of Dust. It simply is too weird a … text to ever be published in other way, than this, as a cute little book, postcards, maps, images, and all.

We were all anxiously awaiting The Book of Dust. Instead we received The Book of Stuff. Stuff that is as confusing as the story itself.