Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
