Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the church's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
