Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
