Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
