Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
