Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the world's air: portals that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
