Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden 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 states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
