Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
