Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell independence of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
