Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's air: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
