Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
