Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown 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 original series, her movements and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's air: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
