Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. One such window seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
