Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
