Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
