The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust #2)

by Philip Pullman

Pantalaimon, the dæmon of Lyra Belacqua, now called Lyra Silvertongue, lay along the windowsill of Lyra’s little study-bedroom in St. Sophia’s College in a state as far from thought as he could get.

First line

“You won’t understand anything about the imagination until you realize that it’s not about making things up, it’s about perception.

“Young people don’t believe in the secret commonwealth,” Brabandt said. “It’s all chemistry and measuring things, as far as they’re concerned. They got an explanation for everything, and they’re all wrong.” “What’s the secret commonwealth?” “The world of the fairies, and the ghosts, and the jacky lanterns.”

One of the things that Bonneville had noticed in the course of his life was that older men, homosexual or not, could be very susceptible to the flattery of younger ones if it was expressed with frankness and sincerity. The essential thing was to confirm the views of the older ones in such a way as to convey the simple and genuine admiration of a young person who might one day become a disciple.

The other side’s got an energy that our side en’t got. Comes from their certainty about being right. If you got that certainty, you’ll be willing to do anything to bring about the end you want. It’s the oldest human problem, Lyra, an’ it’s the difference between good and evil. Evil can be unscrupulous, and good can’t. Evil has nothing to stop it doing what it wants, while good has one hand tied behind its back. To do the things it needs to do to win, it’d have to become evil to do ’em.”

Instead, we should delicately and subtly undermine the idea that truth and facts are possible in the first place. Once the people have become doubtful about the truth of anything, all kinds of things will be open to us.”

But then she remembered what the gyptians had said: Include things, don’t leave them out. Look at things in their context. Include everything.

Had reason ever created a poem, or a symphony, or a painting? If rationality can’t see things like the secret commonwealth, it’s because rationality’s vision is limited. The secret commonwealth is there. We can’t see it with rationality any more than we can weigh something with a microscope: it’s the wrong sort of instrument. We need to imagine as well as measure….

alive. It’s technically illegal, but big money brushes the law aside….When