Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, 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 baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
