Tings are collapsing in the final volume 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 energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's air: portals that look to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
