Things are falling apart in the final volume 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 charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger 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 the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
