Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent 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 societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future 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 movements and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
