Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
