Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
