Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
