Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
