Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
