Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
