Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
