Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
