Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
