Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
