I’m loving this novel by Philip Pullman.  Awhile ago, I mentioned The Golden Compass, a film about a 12-year-old heroine named Lyra – based on another Philip story.

La Belle Sauvage is the name of a canoe piloted by young Malcolm, who with his friend Alice is saving the infant Lyra from evil forces.

I love Pullman’s writing.  He creates a turn of phrase that catches the human moment exquisitely.

Here are a few of my favourites from La Belle Sauvage:

1.  He was fond of most things he knew.

So few words to describe a glorious way to live.

2.  This little room was where he felt how big the world could be.

Other than the word “little”, Philip hasn’t described the room.  But I can feel it … where possibility lives.

3.  These other folk, they’re all like us, in the same position, kind of thing, but you don’t enquire too close, it en’t polite.

People may look different than us but we know deep down that they share our thrills and agonies.  We’re so curious … but we don’t reach out to connect.

4.  Everything was saturated, whether with rain or dew or the remains of the flood.  Everything he touched was heavy and soaked and rotten.  His heart was just like that.  He would never manage to light any of it.

Sometimes there’s the hopelessness of life.  The rain keeps falling and the sun is forgotten.

5.  The look they exchanged in the mouth of the cave before going back to the fire was something Malcolm never forgot: it was deep and complex and close, and it touched every part of him …

A timeless moment of contact.  May we all experience such times for the rest of our lives.