Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
