Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
