Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
