Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
