The Secret Commonwealth

Highlights

Page 985

As they walked along the path next to the Mail depot they heard the great bell of Cardinal’s College tolling eleven, and Lyra thought of the lecture that she should be attending just then, the last of the term. Annie and Helen would be there, though, and she could borrow their notes;

Note: Don’t do it Lyra. Prioritise your GPA!

Page 092

‘Make sure to do some reading,’ she said. ‘Frankopan’s good. Hughes-Williams has a very good chapter on Levantine trade. Don’t forget—’

Note: A historian dealing with Mediterranean history called Frankopan. Nice shoutout.

Page 649

Lyra generally preferred to eat with the servants anyway. It was one of the privileges of her unique position that she could move in any of the circles that made up the complex ecology of the place. A full Scholar would have felt, or be made to feel, she thought, a little ill at ease in the company of the kitchen staff or the porters, but Lyra was just as much at home with them or the gardeners or the handymen as with the higher servants like Mr Cawson or Mrs Lonsdale, or with the Master and his guests. Sometimes these guests – politicians or business people or senior civil servants or courtiers – brought with them a breadth of knowledge and a world of experience quite different from the academic specialisms of the Scholars, which were deep indeed, but narrow.

Note: The character can then have access to whatever knowledge is necessary

Page 745

‘And, Lyra, one more thing. You’ve been used to dining in Hall, to accepting the hospitality of the Scholars, to coming and going freely as if you were a Scholar yourself. It’s been put to me by several voices, and I’m bound to say I agree, that that behaviour is no longer appropriate. You will be living among servants, and living, so to speak, as a servant. It would not be right any more for you to live on terms of social equality with the academic body.’ ‘Of course not,’ she said. Surely she was dreaming this. ‘I’m glad you understand. You will have things to think about. If it would help at all to talk to me, to ask any questions, please don’t hesitate to do so.’

Note: The whole spiel about needing her current rook was so that he could do this. Put her down in the social classes.

Page 756

‘Well,’ she said. ‘That was cruel.’ ‘I don’t know. If there’s no money left … I don’t know.’ ‘I didn’t mean that. You know what I meant. The servant thing.’ ‘Nothing wrong with being a servant.’ ‘All right, those several voices then. I don’t believe any Scholar in the college would want us treated like that. He was just deflecting the blame.’

Page 595

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

Page 640

In that wider perspective, Oakley Street seemed absurd: an organisation whose very existence had to be concealed from the nation it had been set up to protect, whose agents were mostly now middle-aged or older and fewer in number than ever, whose resources were so scanty that its director would have had to travel third class on a slow train from London and he, Malcolm, would have to subsidise his own travel to Karamakan. What did this decrepit, poverty-stricken, understaffed body think it was doing, taking on the entire Magisterium?

Note: Root for the underdog!

Page 666

‘Brothers and Sisters,’ the Prefect began, ‘in the name and the authority of the Most High, we are summoned here today to discuss a matter of burning importance. Our faith has in recent years been challenged and threatened as never before. Heresy is flourishing, blasphemy goes unpunished, the very doctrines that have led us through two thousand years are being openly mocked in every land. This is a time for people of faith to draw together and make our voices heard with unmistakable force.

Note: Oh no! Christians khatre mein hain!

Page 034

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.

Page 633

‘Tempted? No, I don’t think I’m tempted. But I do think we need to reckon with it.’ ‘Reckon with it? What does that mean?’ She was most alive when she was animated by venom. Now she was sick and old he enjoyed provoking her, as one might tease a scorpion that was safely behind glass.

Page 135

Delamare knew that Talbot’s philosophy maintained that nothing was anything, fundamentally, but he didn’t question what the Oxford man said. If the phrase ‘useful idiot’ had existed in their world, it would have expressed his opinion of Talbot precisely.

Page 140

‘How did he know about your connection with the incompetent policeman?’ he said when he’d finished. ‘That remains to be discovered.’ ‘If he’s a bumpkin, your arrangement can’t have been well hidden. If it was well hidden, he’s not a bumpkin. Which is it?’ ‘Perhaps I’m overemphasising his—’ ‘Never mind. Thank you for coming in, Professor. I shall be busy now.’ He stood to shake hands, and Talbot gathered his cloak and his briefcase and left, obscurely humiliated, though he wasn’t sure how; but his philosophy soon made that feeling disappear.

Page 216

‘Good on a platform too. And I think he had read The Hyperchorasmians. He didn’t want to admit it.’ ‘Harder to see why that’s popular.’ ‘I don’t think so,’ said Malcolm. ‘It’s a gripping story that encourages people not to feel bad about being selfish. Plenty of customers for that point of view.’

Note: Wow this guy hates Atlas Shrugged

Page 691

‘Where are those people travelling from?’ ‘From the south; ultimately, from the Black Sea or further. The boats travel on from here to the north where this river joins the Elbe, and from there to Hamburg and the German Ocean.’ ‘Does every boat that lands here carry passengers like those? They look like refugees.’ ‘More and more of them arrive every day. The Magisterium has begun to encourage each province of the Church to regulate its territory with a firmer hand. In Bohemia things are not yet as savage as elsewhere; refugees are still given sanctuary. But that can’t go on indefinitely. We shall have to begin turning them away before too long.’

Note: Clear how he feels about the refugee issue

Page 697

In their short walk through the city, Lyra had already noticed a few people huddled in doorways, or sleeping on benches. She’d supposed they were beggars, and she was sorry to see that such

Note: Goddamn socialist. He needs the gospel of Supply Side Jesus

Page 611

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

Page 945

The other readers tried it. But they could only do it weakly, uncertainly, they couldn’t handle it. It was talked about all over Europe. But no one can do it properly except me.’ ‘What about the girl? I thought she could do it.’ ‘She’s better than most. I admit that. But she hasn’t got the strength. You need a kind of power, stamina, force, and I guess girls haven’t got it.’

Note: The bad guy is sexist

Page 433

She fetched a blanket from the bed, and put the light out, and settled herself comfortably to watch everything. She wanted to see people and their dæmons: she felt hungry for their completeness.

Note: He is showing, not telling, how much she needs Pan

Page 622

‘Is she at home now?’ ‘She’s a journalist. She’s working at home today.’

Note: 2020 mood

Page 695

Then her dæmon spoke. He’d been watching all this, saying little, occasionally nodding with approval, but now he perched on the back of a chair and said directly, ‘Make your body heavy and slow, but don’t forget what your mind’s doing. You need to look like someone who’s suffering from a depression of the spirits, because that makes people turn away. They don’t like looking at suffering. But it’s very easy to become depressed by mimicking it. Don’t fall into that trap. Your dæmon would tell you that, if he was here. Your body affects your mind. You need to act, not be.’

Page 136

What’ll you do when you find her?’ ‘Travel together. We’re going further east, to where the roses come from.’ ‘On behalf of Oakley Street?’ ‘Well, yes. Of course.’ ‘Don’t try and tell us that’s all it is,’ said Anita. ‘You’re in love with her.’ Malcolm felt a great weariness oppress his heart. It must have shown in his expression,

Note: Romba over

Page 692

She said, ‘Dæmon?’ and tried to indicate her own lack of one, but the woman clearly didn’t understand, and Lyra just shook her head. There was nothing else she could do. Perhaps these poor people had to do the job they did because, without having dæmons, they were less than human in the eyes of their society. They were the lowest caste there was. And she belonged with them.

Note: Fml

Page 747

However, no one looked at her. She had become what she’d been trying to become ever since the beginning of this journey: invisible. Combined with the dowdy-depressed way of moving recommended by Anita Schlesinger, the veil made her actively resistant to other people’s interest. Men in particular walked in front of her as if she had no more substance or importance than a shadow, barged ahead at street crossings, took no notice at all. And little by little she began to feel a kind of freedom in this state.

Note: Paradox

Page 808

‘No. I’ve spoken to no one except the people who helped me, and we had no language in common anyway.’ ‘What were their names?’ ‘Chil-du, and Yozdah.’ ‘A night-soil man and his wife.’ ‘Do you know them?’ ‘No. But their names are not Anatolian – they’re Tajik. They mean Eleven, the woman, and Forty-two, the man.’ ‘Tajik?’ she said. ‘Yes. They’re not allowed to have personal names, so they’re given numbers instead, even for the men, odd for the women.’ ‘That’s horrible. Are they slaves or something?’ ‘Something like that. They can take up only a limited number of occupations: grave-digging is a common one. And the night-soil business.’

Page 865

Lyra sat down, watching every expression that came and went on the priest’s face. ‘Your Tajik friends,’ he said quietly, ‘their dæmons will have been sold.’ She wasn’t sure she’d heard him. ‘What? Did you say sold? People sell their dæmons?’ ‘It’s poverty,’ he said. ‘There’s a market for dæmons. Medical knowledge here is quite advanced, unlike other things. Big corporations are behind it. They say the medical companies are experimenting here before expanding into the European market. There’s a surgical operation … Many people survive it now. Parents will sell their children’s dæmons for money to stay alive. It’s technically illegal, but big money brushes the law aside … When the children grow up, they’re not full citizens, being incomplete. Hence their names, and the occupations they have to take up.

Note: Fuck me. This is not a children’s book

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