Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's air: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
