Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the world's air: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
