Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
