Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
