Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the