Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
