Tings are unraveling in the last installment 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 charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
