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    La bella salvaje: El libro de la oscuridad. Volumen I
    Unavailable
    La bella salvaje: El libro de la oscuridad. Volumen I
    Unavailable
    La bella salvaje: El libro de la oscuridad. Volumen I
    Ebook543 pages9 hours

    La bella salvaje: El libro de la oscuridad. Volumen I

    By Philip Pullman

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Philip Pullman regresa al mundo de La Materia Oscura con esta maravillosa primera entrega de su nueva serie.

    Malcolm Polstead, un joven adolescente de once años, y su daimonion Asta viven con sus padres muy cerca de Oxford. Al otro lado del río Támesis (en el que Malcolm navega habitualmente utilizando su amada canoa, un bote con el nombre de La Bella Salvaje) está la abadía de Godstow, habitada por las monjas de la región. Malcolm descubrirá que ellas tienen un huésped muy especial, una niña con el nombre de Lyra Belacqua…

    «En algunas ocasiones surgen autores que son capaces de alterar la imaginación de generaciones enteras. Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis y Tolkien fueron algunos de ellos. Philip Pullman sin duda también lo es.» The New Statesman

    «La espera ha valido la pena.» The Guardian

    «Una obra de fantasía singularmente cautivadora. Seguramente será devorado por lectores jóvenes y adultos por igual.» AV CLUB

    «El autor de la trilogía La Materia Oscura continúa la historia de una de las heroínas más indelebles de la literatura.» New York Times

    «Fantasía y filosofía aseguradas.» Página Dos, RTVE

    «Los fans de esta serie estarán encantados de reencontrarse con el mundo familiar de su autor predilecto, con esos daimonions, aletiómetros, con las amistosas hechiceras y con el Magisterio, pero, sobre todo, seguirán profundizando, a través de esa especie de visión panorámica o kinestésica de la prosa de Pullman, en niveles de lectura más clásicos y valiosos.» Juan Bolea, El Periódico de Aragón

    «Recuerden ese nombre. Si no saben qué leer, o qué regalarle a un niño, Philip Pullman es la respuesta.» El Economista de México

    «Sigue teniendo la misma narración que atrapó en los anteriores libros y esos personajes tan inocentes y a la vez tan valientes y maduros que viven grandes aventuras.» Fantasymundo

    LanguageEspañol
    PublisherRoca editorial
    Release dateNov 9, 2017
    ISBN9788417092603
    Unavailable
    La bella salvaje: El libro de la oscuridad. Volumen I
    Author

    Philip Pullman

    Philip Pullman. Norwich, Inglaterra. 19 de octubre de 1946. Estudió en el Exeter College de Oxford.  Tras una novela de ciencia ficción publicada en 1978 decidió especializarse por fin en la novela infantil y juvenil mientras trabajaba para el Westminster College de Oxford. Su primer gran éxito le llegó en 1995 con la publicación de La brújula dorada, primera parte de una serie de gran éxito en todo el mundo y que fue llevada al cine. A lo largo de su carrera, Pullman ha recibido numerosos premios, como la Carnegie Medal, el Premio Guardian de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil o el Memorial Astrid Lindgren.

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    Reviews for La bella salvaje

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      I'm just a sucker for Philip Pullman. The character development was superb -- Malcolm, Alice, Dr. Relf, Lyra, Sister Fennella, etc., they all became old friends very quickly. By turns interesting, scary, and exciting. Can't wake for the next one.
    • 5/5
      This is an epic fantasy adventure starring eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead who works in his parents' inn and also with the sisters at the Priory. There he becomes involved with the fate of a baby named Lyra who is left at the Priory by her father and who is the target of many different factions.This story is largely concerned with protecting her during an epic flood which sees Malcolm, his friend Alice, and baby Lyra fleeing various villains including Gerard Bonneville - a mad physicist with a sick passion for young girls - and the CCD - an agency of the Church concerned with heresy and unbelief. The trio faces all sorts of obstacles during their trip to bring Lyra to her father Lord Asriel.The world building will be familiar to those who have read Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. It is a fascinating world where every person has a personal demon. There are witches and fairies and all sorts of paranormal creatures. There is also a complex political system which is being invaded by a religious system which encourages children to spy on their parents and turn them in to the authorities if they have "heretical" opinions. And there is a secret underground trying to overthrow these religious fanatics.Young Malcolm finds himself involved in the revolution when he innocently sees a man drop an object and then be arrested by the CCD. Returning it leads him to various spies and into a conspiracy that he is too young to understand.The story was fast-paced, packed with adventure, and excellently read by Michael Sheen. I couldn't put it down and am now off to devour book 2 even knowing that book 3 hasn't yet been written.
    • 3/5
      I'm a fan of Pullman's (well, except for his disparagement of Milne, who is a cherished part of my childhood). I relished the Golden Compass et al., and his opinions on organized religion chime powerfully with mine. So I looked forward to this and absolutely enjoyed it. It is not great literature, but his craft is solid, his characters interesting, vivid and very likable. It's a "lark" for birders, populated with avian daemons (owls, crows, finches...). He has created a culture so convincing that when the heinous Gerard Bonneville violently thrashes his hyena daemon, it is truly shocking. Other reviewers have described the hyena as horrifying, terrible, scary... I found her more tragic than awful. The League of St. Alexander, which co-opts children into informing on their parents, teachers and schoolmates to the sinister religious cabal is far more frightening. This is a finely involving, thoughtful, and compelling adventure story with a hero you will admire and become fond of. I eagerly await the next volume!
    • 3/5
      Another half a star because while I enjoyed the Dark Materials but got rather bored by the sequels, I wasn't expecting much. It delivered an enjoying escapist tale. Another reviewer reported that the action only began half way through - I beg to differ - the best action in this book is the exploration of character and the world the characters are living in and that happens in the first half. I think this book could easily be read without any knowledge of the Dark Materials and my only real complaint is that the last sections don't stand alone without whatever follows. If a book doesn't stand up without a sequel then I feel cheated.... after all I might not choose to read the sequel and then I am left with half a book.
    • 4/5
      Not an intricate a plot as the main trilogy, but a good aventure.
    • 5/5
      This is the first volume of Pullman's Book of Dust trilogy, and is a prequel to Northern Lights. Our heroine Lyra is a baby in this novel, and mysterious forces are out to seize her for the future role she is destined to play. Young Malcolm Polstead, son of the owners of the Trout Inn at Pole Meadow on the outskirts of the Oxford, and his friend Alice, must vanquish dark forces and floods, fleeing to escape Lyra's would be captors. This is a really good and gripping chase novel, and I really enjoyed it, in some ways more than Northern Lights. There are fewer overt fantasy elements, though enough to keep lovers of that particular aspect satisfied, and I continue to really love the concept of personal daemons to act as one's adviser and companion. At the end of the novel, Lyra is placed in scholastic sanctuary at Jordan College, where she will grow up into her role in Northern Lights.
    • 4/5
      This was a brilliant little adventure and I loved every page! To be honest, I was a little hesitant to pick this up, I mean how on earth can you beat 'His Dark Materials' which is one of my absolute favourite series ever but Philip Pullman truly did an excellent job and I feel a reader could pick up this wonderful adventure without reading 'His Dark Materials' and just treat is as a stand alone novel.

      I fell in love with the characters, especially Malcolm who is so loveable and wholesome and I really look forward to reading The Book of Dust #2 with a grown-up Lyra and Malcolm!
    • 5/5
      I read about half of this before crappy life took over, and I couldn’t get back in to it until five months later. I checked out the audiobook and whipped through the second half in a day listening to Michael Sheen’s amazing reading. I loved this story and need to know what’s now next especially since there seemed to be some magic in this one that surprised me. Malcolm and Alice became true heroes, and it was fascinating seeing Malcolm grow up before our eyes. Also baby Lyra and Pan were the best.
    • 4/5
      Lyra's prequel. I had expected this to be a trilogy, but it seems to be complete as it is. Enjoyable and well written as it is, it retcons the world slightly (something prequels should avoid!) and doesn't add anything to the controversy the original series provoked. Lyra herself of course doesn't feature - she was delivered to Jordon college as babe at arms during a great flood, and this is the tale of how that came to be. (I can't remember if this was actually stated in the originals or merely an invention of the TV series, either way it is now canon). So instead we have Malcolm, a young boy living in a prosperous pub the Trout, on the banks of the Thames, in Lyra's world. Malcolm's not a bad lad, and his parents are loving, so whilst he works hard, he also has a lot of time to chat to customers and explore the surrounding countryside. He learns that the priory on the other bank are looking after a baby girl in some secrecy which is amazing to him, as how would grey old nuns know anything about raising a child? He's also confused that they are of the same Church as another faction which are seeking this baby. These others seem cruel to him, and so when the Gyptians warn him that the Thames is flooding like it's never flooded before he manages to rescue the baby and flee in his kayak - the Belle Sauvage of the title.Much of the opening plot works well enough, but once on the river/flood I was far less accepting. Malcolm and his companion have all sorts of adventures meeting various instances of the britsh fairy/folk culture. There is nothing in Lyra's world to suggest why or how such being exist, where they came from, or where they went after Malcom passes them by. I dislike such sloppy world-building that could easily have been circumvented by passing into other worlds (this does not explicitly happen). There's also a ridiculously persistent antagonist who seems killed several times, only to re-appear further downstream. There's no explanation for there extended life, nor any hint that they are simply a metaphor of Malcom's mind. Sadly the daemons do little. Being mostly with children they're free to shift to narratively convenient forms at will, but little joy or spark in their conversations. Interesting but doesn't have the same complexity that made the originals so good.
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written and completely engaging, this book reels you in and takes you on Lyra’s journey from her early life until her arrival in Oxford. By turns exciting, terrifying and grim but always captivating.
    • 5/5
      A very satisfying prequel. I was really prepared to be disappointed by this return to the world of His Dark Materials. Pullman introduces two new young protagonists, and sets them off on a wild adventure that says surprisingly un-fantastical until the book's final act. I loved following Mal's discovery of the world, and seeing him prove himself to be unusually perceptive and clever. If I was hesitant to start this book, I'm now eagerly awaiting the next installment.
    • 3/5
      I'm liking this series just as much as His Dark Materials.
    • 4/5
      Started off great. Like pulling up a warm, familiar blanket. Eventually became a road trip fantasy, only on the water. A very well told one, of course, but not up to the usual Pullman quality. Still enjoyed it very much.
    • 4/5
      Didn't enjoy quite as much as the first three books, but eventually got into it and wrapped up in the story.
    • 4/5
      As a prologue to the His Dark Materials series it fills in the gaps that are left in the wider story of the church and Dust while still sticking true to the "young adult goes on an adventure" formula. About 3/4s of the way through it becomes a big bogged down and repetitious, but overall a very sharply written, quickly moving plot as you'd expect from this author. Someone who hasn't read the original series would still find this book interesting and for those who have, there is the added enjoyment of seeing familiar characters from a different perspective and getting a lot of lore and background information that was only hinted at before.
    • 4/5
      Preeminently forgettable. Looking back at my reading list, I completely forgot this was written, let alone that I had read it.
    • 3/5
      Fantasy, adventure, quest. I have not read any previous Pullman books. It was entertaining. Nice pace. I like the characters. Malcolm is trying to save Lyra in the middle of a flood. From reading, I guess this is a prequel and tells the origins of Lyra. Published in October 2017, and is set 12 years before Northern Lights, the first book of the original trilogy. It describes the 11-year-old protagonist Malcolm Polstead along with a girl named Alice, to protect the baby Lyra.
    • 5/5
      this was fantastic. (took me much too long to read because life had other ideas.) same tone and pace as the other His Dark Materials novels. I'm really looking forward to the next one coming out in October. I'll have to re-read the trilogy to be in the right mind set though as the next book is said to pick up 20 years later.
    • 3/5
      Started off okay as a prequel and then fell into the trope of journey-for-the-sake-of-showing-off-my-imagination.
    • 5/5
      "I'm not old enough for this! Malcolm thought, almost aloud."

      What a journey. I have not read a Pullman book in a while, I enjoyed this world and the characters journeys very much. And now I can't wait to see how they continue on in the next book.
    • 4/5
      I could have done without the fairyland parts towards the end, but otherwise this was very enjoyable. This book is enormous, but easy to read! I look forward to the next part.
    • 4/5
      Such a long time since I read the Dark Materials series! I really miss reading it for the first time. This was a prequel to it, and so will the whole series be. I would maybe have rather read something completely new, but I'll take what I can get. I listened to this as an audiobook and at times could not fully concentrate so I couldn't follow as well as I should have. Will try to do better with the next book!
    • 4/5
      It was a happy re-entry into Lyra's world. An innkeeper's son keeps his hand in all neighborhood doings and learns about the baby that's being not well hidden at the local convent. The Government/Church is up to no good as usual and there is a massive flood threatening the region. It's a good adventure that drags on a bit in the last 3rd (how many mystical beings do you need to encounter?) Of course it is to be continued.
    • 5/5
      Pullman writes sophisticated stories for a young audience set in an alternate world where the Church (the Magisterium here) is at least as powerful as the government; where everyone has a ‘daemon’, an animal extension of the person (the ‘soul’?) visible to all and with which one can converse; where physics is examining the Rusakov field suggesting that consciousness is a physical property of the universe; and, where ‘Dust’, a little known or understood phenomenon is challenging the status quo of the Church.The first trilogy in this universe, His Dark Materials, followed Lyra as a young girl as she is enveloped in and tries to understand these mysteries. La Belle Sauvage, the first volume in a new trilogy called The Book of Dust, is set ten years earlier, at Lyra’s birth, and details the adventures of Malcolm and Alice as they rescue the baby Lyra and return her to her father, Lord Asriel, against a backdrop of biblical flooding in the Thames Valley in ‘Brytain’.First, the story: a helter-skelter adventure full of derring-do and action that keeps the reader wanting to turn the page. The characters, especially Malcolm and Alice, are extraordinarily well-drawn and their every action and thought is made to seem entirely believable and obvious. Pullman never talks down to his audience (which makes this such a good adult read as well) and includes complex issues of philosophy - life, death, love, hope, fear, where do we come from?, where are we going? - as natural extensions of the growth of the young protagonists.This is an exceptionally fine book and certainly outdoes anything from His Dark Materials. I cannot wait for the next episode.
    • 3/5
      In this tale we meet Malcolm, a friendly clever and handy lad who spends is time working at his parents' inn, helping out the nearby nuns and rowing his canoe La Belle Sauvage. Whilst getting entwined with spies working with alethiometers to thwart the influence of the menacing church authorities, he grows to adore little baby Lyra, who was left in the care of the nuns. As an epic flood devastates the village and all of London, Malcolm and Alice, a standoffish waitress with courage and other hidden depths, rescue Lyra from the flood and evil forces in Malcolm's canoe, to try and take her to her father or the sanctuary of Jordan College.

      Laid out like that, the story is very promising. And it fulfils about 70% of that promise. I grew fond of Malcolm and Alice. Their growing friendship in adversity was lovely to watch. Though just a baby, Lyra was enchanting, and the interactions between her and the kids were fun, with all of their daemons (baby Pan!) Adding an extra level of adorableness. Some of the canoe adventures were thrilling and fast-paced.

      But.. the other 30% let the book down a little. The brilliance of Dust was key in the original trilogy, but this prequel doesn't offer much new there, just rehashes what we already knew. The authoritarian religious elements (aside from the kindly nuns at the start) were also a bit over-the-top, they didn't have the subtle chill from the original books, more the blow of a hammer. Some of the adventures towards the end made my interest drift away, and were a bit too similar from scenes in the original. An encounter with a fairy, a break-in to a religious institution and an ambiguous journey near the land of the dead, all seemed a bit mundane somehow, though they should have been some of the best parts. There were a few extra dark scenes, which seemed a bit too mature almost for a book with an 11 year old character, and disturbed me a little. Usually that sort of thing doesn't bother me, but here it just didn't feel right. And after the book started to seem a little overlong and bloated, the ending was really abrupt.

      Ultimately, I think a more succinct version of this book, with a more thoughtful and conclusive ending, would have impressed me more. It had all the beautiful elements I was hoping for, but they got bogged down by some scenes I couldn't get into, and too much of the extraneous stuff happening in the wider society. I did really love seeing baby Lyra, and am just as excited for grown-up Lyra. Malcolm and Alice were no Lyra & Will, but they were still brave and interesting kids that I enjoyed my time with.
    • 4/5
      This is not a rapidly paced book. But if you're looking to spend more time in Lyra's world, then you'll almost definitely enjoy it. Personally, I really like the characters and the spinning out of the world and the times and the influences and the little snippets of information in the first part. The second part wasn't what I expected with the introduction of the fae element, but it seems that in the way that His Dark Materials is influenced by Paradise Lost , The Book of Dust is influenced by The Faerie Queene . Which is the shove I need to finally read that, instead of just letting it sit on my shelf the way it has for the past 6 years. I flew through this, but you can just as easily take it at a lovely ambling pace, savouring all of the details. And although I was disappointed that Lyra remained a baby throughout the book, baby Pantalaimon has stolen my heart.
    • 3/5
      I liked this well enough, but it seemed kind of scattered at times, like a bunch of unconnected scenes. Also, Malcolm's characterization seemed too much like Lyra's (precocious, adventurous, resourceful, a creative liar, finds friends and allies easily) while Alice's characterization was weak almost to the point of nonexistence (she was angry until she wasn't, and she was there to be Malcolm's Little Helper).Content warnings: Animal harm, attempted rape, mentions of pedophilia, drowning, attempted child abduction, mentions of child abuse
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed La Belle Sauvage (LBS), even if (alas) I am many decades too old for the book's YA market. Pullman's story-telling and prose style are engaging and (yes) page-turning. I also liked the book's erudition and the well-drawn main characters, both good guys and rascals. LBS is every bit as good as the best of the Harry Potter novels (Prisoner of Azkeban, I'm thinking), and arguably better (not that it's a competition). Having read Pullman's excellent His Dark Materials trilogy with my children 10 or so years ago, LBS draws me to read them again. I highly recommend LBS to YAs, OAs, and all ages in-between!
    • 2/5
      In short, this book was a tremendous disappointment. It started promisingly, but went progressively downhill after that. When I read “The Golden Compass” so many years ago, I was enthralled. Pullman had created an alternate universe that was deeply creative, fascinating, and operated by its own orderly logic. All people had a dæmon, an animal companion which was actually part of the person. A human could not exist without their dæmon. The story was genius.The second book, “The Subtle Knife,” was excellent, but not up to par with the first volume. I did not get over my disappointment that much of this book took place in our world, instead of the alternate reality world of “The Golden Compass.”Then came “The Amber Spylgass.” That was terrible. The trilogy ended with nonsensical veerings into alternate worlds so absurd that I found it hard to believe they came from the same author as the brilliant first book. It also seemed by the end to be an almost propaganda like diatribe against religion. Still, when I saw “La Belle Sauvage,” the first volume in a prequel trilogy, “The Book of Dust.” I had to give it a try. I had high hopes of returning to Lyra's Oxford, dæmons, etc. I was relatively pleased for the first half of the book. Not up to par with The Golden Compass, but at least in the same vein. It opens when Lyra (the young heroine from “The Golden Compass”) was an infant. It is set in the world I so loved from the first book. The story revolves around 11 year old Malcolm and 16 year old Alice trying to save baby Lyra from mysterious agents, perhaps Magesterium, perhaps government, perhaps something else entirely, who want to kidnap her.Halfway through the book, a flood ensues. As I pictured the descriptions, I could only envision an impossible flood of almost Noah-like proportions. The whole second half of the book takes place as Malcolm, Alice, and Lyra go from place to place in a small canoe, trying escape from any number of pursuers. The further it goes, the more absurd it gets. In the last hundred pages, there are at least three or four encounters that seem completely random, nonsensical, and totally out of place in the world that Pullman created, and by the end of the book, these deeply weird and illogical events and characters don’t even seem to have any significance to the ultimate plot. It felt like Pullman had contracted to write a 450 page book and came up 100 pages short, so he threw in a bunch of irrellevant filler to make the book longer… and not very good filler.When you reach the end of a book in a trilogy, you should have a sense of conclusion – with a few things to be resolved or continued in the next book; but overall, the book should feel complete. This one did not. It felt, not like the first third of a trilogy, but like the first third of a single large book. Almost nothing was resolved, and as mentioned earlier, many things were left hanging, not just in terms of plot resolution, but even in terms of basic logic and sense.It should also be noted that unlike “His Dark Materials” this is not really a YA book. The publisher seems to know this, as both the dimensions and price of the hardcover reflect the standards for adult fiction, not YA fiction. The main villain in the book is a sexual predator. There is suggestion of past, and threat of coming sexual assaults both against 16 year old Alice, some nuns, and even a mention – (never brought up again in this volume), of the “good guys” using 11-year-old Malcolm as bait to lure a man with a sexual appetite for young boys. By the end of the book, Malcolm is beginning to have the first hints of sexual longing for his friend Alice, who is 16 to his 11. I hope that the next two books in the series will make some sense of the events towards the end of the book, but unless I've heard overwhelming positive reviews saying it was a vast improvement on the first book, I won't bother with it. I'm baffled by how many good reviews this one has gotten. Analogy: Episode 1: Phantom Menace is to Episode 4: A New Hope, as La Belle Sauvage is to The Golden Compass.
    • 5/5
      i was pretty nervous to pick this up since the HDM series was such a big part of my childhood, but holy shit. this was fucking magical.