Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
