Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
