Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
