Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell independence of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
