Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
