Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
