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The Book of Dust
Vol. 1: La Belle Sauvage
by Philip Pullman

It has been a long time since His Dark Materials first burst onto the literary landscape--so long that, at this remove, it may be difficult for Philip Pullman fans to actually remember everything that went on in the trilogy. Having that background knowledge helps, but is not necessary, if you decide to pick up La Belle Sauvage, the first volume in Pullman's tripartite return to the world of Lyra Belacqua, daemons, and Dust.

However, what may be (somewhat surprisingly) necessary for Pullman's readers to bring to the author's new epic is a fair amount of patience, and a memory of the goodwill he built with them through his earlier, quite spectacular effort.

The Book of Dust:
Volume 1--La Belle Sauvage

It is probably worth declaring, right now, that the above sentiment is not meant to dissuade anyone from reading La Belle Sauvage, or to suggest that Pullman's new work is a bad book. In many ways, La Belle Sauvage delivers much of the promise that fans would expect from a new episode of the HDM epic. But, when viewed with the inevitably jaundiced eye that one must bring to a new work that hopes to build upon a previous lofty achievement, it becomes all the more apparent that the mark has in fact been missed, even if the author's new effort came about as close as one could expect it to have.

Partially, the problem Pullman faces with this new volume is self-inflicted, because the early chapters of La Belle Sauvage are a pure pleasure to read, and thus the expectations get raised considerably. It takes but a few pages for fans to be reminded of just how good a prose stylist Pullman is; his talent for a clever turn of phrase remains firmly within his mastery, and one can't help but smile--if not outright laugh--at the author's cleverness as he relates the early pages of his tale. The description of the life of innkeeper's son--and soon to be epic hero--Malcolm Polstead is perfectly charming, witty, vivid in creating a sense of time and place, and full of promise of wonderful things to come. Intrigue arrives quickly, and in no time the reader is off on an adventure that appears certain to provide plenty of excitement, enchantment, and maybe a little danger, too.

The problem arises, oddly enough, once the action of the story finally starts to happen. Most of the early chapters of La Belle Sauvage are composed of scene-setting; much of what goes on is talky and lays the groundwork for the adventure that is about to come.

That description is not a disparagement. Quite the contrary: again, Pullman's penchant for clever turns of phrase, his talent at characterization, and his world-building vision all make the early chapters of the book into something fascinating--and those expectations build as the reader awaits the inevitable payoff of a fully realized saga.

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work out that way. Once the crisis moment comes, and Malcolm, his partner-antagonist Alice (the dishwasher at his parents' inn), and the infant Lyra make their desperate escape from danger, La Belle Sauvage presents the paradox of a story where the action finally starts...but the narrative somehow slows down. As the three kids follow the Thames through the flooded Oxfordshire landscape and down towards London--pursued all the way by a very dangerous character--Pullman's story bogs down somewhat, despite the characters' literal movement and the high narrative stakes.

What's the problem? Mostly, it seems that the author, having plotted himself into an epic flood, feels compelled to give the disaster a fittingly epic amount of attention. Pullman indulges in a great deal of detailed description of the water-logged Oxfordshire landscape--a patch of earth that is obviously much loved by the author, but is most likely quite unfamiliar to most of his readers, and thus not nearly the object of fascination that Pullman obviously believes it to be.

There are other issues with Malcolm and Alice's odyssey. Pullman uses the trip down the river--really, across a temporary ocean that may as well be an ancient Greek hero's Mediterranean--as the setting for a series of stops along the way, most of which serve as the staging for some supernatural tableaux. Most of these scenes veer past the point of diversion and reach the unwanted shore that is distraction. The reader can only hope that Pullman is setting up something for the new trilogy's future volumes, for there's precious little payoff in these vaguely Homeric episodes.

Problems also spring not just from the narrative's set pieces, but also from the book's characters as well. Daemons, Pullman's unique contribution to fantasy literature--and a clever device for converting internal monologues into actual external dialogue--get strangely inconsistent treatment from the author. Malcolm's daemon Asta is always named and lives as a fully developed character in her own right; meanwhile, Alice's daemon Ben is often obscure, sometimes unnamed, and frequently seemingly forgotten. That, and other, similar, almost lazy treatment of other characters' daemons, can be found throughout the tale--an odd bit of literary clumsiness given Pullman's status as the sire of the device.

As for the human characters themselves, Malcolm and Alice start off as antagonists, then inevitably become allies and friends, and perhaps even more than that--which is odd and a little uncomfortable, given the difference in their stated ages. Malcolm starts the book as an eleven-year-old; Alice is described as "about sixteen." That's a major difference in developmental stages, and makes some of the story's later developments strange and improbable. Indeed, when the final confrontation comes with the book's chief villain, it includes a bit of ugliness that is of questionable necessity to the plot. The affront seems gratuitous, and while the guilty party receives justice, the entire scene stains the proceedings and makes the book's denouement arrive under a disturbing cloud.

Further character problems include the outright disappearance of at least two characters who, based upon the early chapters of the book, seem to be poised to play major roles in the later narrative. They don't. Again, one hopes that further developments are being set up for payoff in future volumes, but there are no guarantees.

So then, is La Belle Sauvage a bad book? No. But it feels very incomplete--more incomplete than even a volume 1 of any trilogy should feel. Unintentionally, perhaps, Pullman has put his readers into a story with stakes about as high as those faced by Malcolm, Alice, and the rest of Lyra's guardians: the high stakes of judging a literary work for its quality, and whether that attribute is great enough to make moving forward with the work's sequels worth one's while. I think there's enough in Volume 1 of The Book of Dust to make a fan anticipate Volume 2...but, as with the kids in La Belle Sauvage, it's a precarious thing, and the escape may be a narrow one. We'll see.

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The Evolution of Beauty
by Richard O. Prum

Whenever we wish to answer any question about the natural world, and we're in doubt about it, we usually turn to Darwin. Except, that is, when it comes to the question of beauty and how it exists in the world, according to Yale professor Richard Prum. The rejection of Darwin's ideas about sexual selection--as opposed to his theory of natural selection--by the bulk of evolutionary scientists serves as the inspiration for Prum's The Evolution of Beauty, a book written as a methodical (and methodological) counterpoint to the field's slavish devotion to adaptation as the answer to everything.

Prum makes it clear that he does not wish to reject the notion of adaptive mate choice--the evolutionary mechanism that is scientists' preferred answer for why animals evolve in every given way--but simply wishes to reassert an arbitrary character to certain processes that lead to many of the extraordinary forms and behaviors displayed by animals and humans.

The Evolution of Beauty
by Richard O. Prum

Yes, humans, too. We're animals of a sort, and one of the great legacies of Darwin's investigation of evolution was to pull modern human beings out of their Ptolemaic universe, where we viewed ourselves as a special creation that lived in the center of the universe, near to but separated from the rest of the animal kingdom, and into a more scientific and realistic conception of ourselves as being the products of an expansive Tree of Life--animals along with all the rest of this planet's occupants, and sharing many similar characteristics, right down to our genes.

Thus, if you're the type who likes to spend weekends hanging out at the Creationist Museum, this book is probably not for you.

If, however, you have an open mind--especially a mind more open than most of today's current crop of evolutionary scientists, according to Prum--then you're likely to profit from reading The Evolution of Beauty, particularly if you have long pondered the signficance of the differences we see among creatures in the world around us--including the creatures we see at the mall, the grocery store, and the office.

Frankly, the idea that much of the organic world's existence is governed by a notion of aesthetic mate choice--that is, mates are chosen not simply for their Darwinian "fitness," but also for how aesthetically pleasing they are to other members of their species--seems like something fairly obvious. This observer has long understood (to his own personal detriment) how "the birds with the brightest plumage are the ones who get the mates." It seems like a strain to deny that being beautiful works heavily to a creature's advantage, be that creature a Great Argus pheasant, a breed of dog, or a USC cheerleader.

Yet, according to Prum, that has largely been the case within the field of evolutionary science, where the out-sized influence of Alfred Russell Wallace (the co-discoverer with Darwin of natural selection) has worked for over a hundred years to champion the primacy of all-powerful adaptation as the cause of all evolutionary change.

As Prum establishes in his book's early chapters, the turn away from Darwin's theory of aesthetic mate choice as a key component of sexual selection was largely driven by Wallace's personal animus, along with hearty doses of Victorian-era primness, particularly with regards to female sexual autonomy. The implications of "this aesthetic view of life"--as Prum puts it, echoing Darwin's famous closing to Origin of Species--were a little too risque if not revolutionary for the staid world in which the famous naturalist first proposed them, and biological sciences clung to adaptation as a shield against any nervous-making ideas interfering with their solidly orderly and reasonable view of how animals evolve.

But now, in the 21st century--where primness is an idea that has dissolved and the culture has moved well beyond the boundary of quaintness--along comes Prum, an ornithologist who has taken a lifetime of observing birds and their mating rituals and identified behaviors and physical characteristics that simply can't be explained by mere adaptation, or "honest advertising" of physical superiority, as the adaptationist creed would have you believe.

Thus, most of the first half of The Evolution of Beauty presents Prum's examples from the field, where his observations--literally, his bird-watching excursions--of Great Argus pheasants, various species of Manakins and Bowerbirds, and other exotic avians introduced him to behaviors and traits that defy classification as advertisements of an individual bird's fitness. Prum explains how, in most of the species studied, female mate choice served as the engine for creating adjustments to the males who were seeking mates, either through changes in appearance or in behavior, that are not only not adaptive in nature, but in some instances can be considered maladaptive, at least from an individual's point of view. (The mating displays of male Manakins--where multiple males show coordinated behaviors that assure certain birds lose out on breeding opportunities--are particularly effective evidence.) The chapter on duck sex presents a surprisingly dramatic scenario that makes a sound case for just how strong--and urgent--is the female drive to adapt in order to preserve their sexual freedom--a freedom of choice that insists upon being able to preserve a hen's desire to mate with the drake who is most appealing to her.

Later in the book, Prum tackles how aesthetic mate choice works in the human species, from our divergence with our ape cousins all the way through to the rise of homosexuality as an open human sexual phenomenon in these later days (at least as a question of sexual identity, if not the more ancient mechanics of the thing). Subjects tackled in these later chapters are as colorful as the human male's lack of a baculum (penis bone) and the utility of female orgasms (maybe there isn't any, besides the fact that it feels good) to the sobering reality that many of the by-products of human aesthetic mate choice (by women) serve the purpose of nullifying "traditions" of sexual coercion and violence. It's a rich tapestry for sure, and bound to be of interest to anyone with an interest in human sexual dynamics--which is to say, everyone.

Prum's treatment of his subject is scholarly, but that doesn't mean it's too opaque for the average reader to comprehend. The professor doesn't dumb things down; he keeps his reporting as straightforward and clear as possible to serve the purpose of reaching, and influencing, a broad audience. So, too, does his writing style; Prum injects a healthy amount of humor and even pop culture references into his text, which certainly helps to lubricate the nonscientist's understanding of the subjects being discussed. For a work as intelligent and dense as The Evolution of Beauty, the book is in fact a relatively easy and enjoyable read. The author's only real misstep comes in his closing chapter, where he presents as a thematic anchor a gross misinterpretation of an old Greek aphorism, which then serves to undermine his closing argument. Other than that one fault, Prum's presentation is lucid, well-argued, and hard to refute.

So, then, does The Evolution of Beauty triumph in beating back the adaptationists' claims to universality? Yes, I think so, at least as far as the notion of the ubiquitous and unchangeable power of adaptive mate choice is concerned. There's too much here that argues too strongly in favor of that "aesthetic view of life" for all the eggs to be placed in the adaptive basket. But some of Prum's conclusions--"intellectual offerings" may be a more accurate description--remain highly speculative and are (by the author's own admission) still wanting in evidence to be claimed as fact. Overall, the case for aesthetic mate choice is strong, but, as the Scots might say, "not proven."

Still, The Evolution of Beauty is a welcome addition to the scientific bookshelf. Science only progresses--indeed, only happens--when questions are asked, particularly questions that challenge entrenched dogmas. Prum had done more than enough with this volume to raise important questions and set the course for the next generation of evolutionary biologists to find the proof for these ideas.