Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger 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 Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
