Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell independence of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the world's air: portals that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
