Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain 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 accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
