Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
