Philip Pullman’s latest missal, La Belle Sauvage, once again features the boat-dwelling Gyptians. Rough and honourable, they emerge from the waterways of Brytain to help the heroine Lyra, before disappearing back to their watery world, one that runs through Lyra’s, but is separate and different from it. After a long weekend on the canals in the heart of Britain, I feel I have been drifting in Pullman’s wake.
‘Just steer her in here,’ says the boatman. We are new to the canals, so he is taking us through the first lock. ‘Straight in’. He must be joking: only one lock gate is open. The gap is about six inches wider than the boat. But his weathered face is completely straight — and completely calm. Deep breath.
We make it into the lock without damage. Our boatman disappears up the towpath, and we are alone on the canal.
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