Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
