Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
