Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the world's sky: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
