Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the church's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
