Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
