Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
