The Book of Dust

by Philip Pullman

Volumes 2 and 3

The Secret Commonwealth

The Rose Field

Volume 2  of Pullman’s new trilogy raises the same kind of questions as Volume 1. It’s a great story for readers who know what’s going on. However, I did wonder if Sir Philip did enough to attract new readers to his work. So much of The Secret Commonwealth depends on what happened before, especially in the three original novels. Are kids, and adults for that matter, going to be happy to work through the 1,100 pages or so of  His Dark Materials before tackling the book they just bought?

So, having voiced those little thoughts, what is The Secret Commonwealth about?

About twenty years have elapsed since baby Lyra was left by her father in the safety of Jordan College. Around eight have passed since she returned to Oxford after her adventures in the North and through the Multiverse. She is now a student at St Sophia’s, while her daemon Pantalaimon has settled as a pine marten. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued her as a baby from the Great Flood, and is ten years her senior, is a lecturer at yet another college.

‘The room was in utter confusion. Chairs were overturned, books pulled out of shelves and thrown on the floor, papers in a scattered mass on the desk. The rug was pulled back and a floorboard had been taken out. “Well, they found it,” said Lyra.’

The two parts of Lyra’s personalty are at odds with one another in fundamental ways. As a result of Lyra’s abandoning of him to visit the world of the dead, Pan can now separate from her in the same way as witches’ daemons do. While roaming Oxford one night on his own, he witnesses a murder. The dying man begs Pan to take his wallet, which with difficulty he does. The wallet identifies the victim as Dr Hassell, an Oxford botanist who was also an agent for Oakley Street, the secret organisation opposed to the Magisterium. The contents of the wallet in turn lead Lyra to a battered rucksack in a left-luggage locker.

Disturbing events are taking place in the Middle East concerning the production of a special kind of rose oil in which the Magisterium is interested. Now Lyra’s find leads her to Hanna Relf and back into the company of Malcolm, though she has no recollection of their adventure twenty years ago. Her life is still in danger, from the Magisterium and other enemies, led by the sinister Marcel Delmarre (brother of Marissa Coulter) and his assistant Olivier Bonneville, an adept at a new method of reading the alethiometer.

‘Marcel Delmarre listened to the Prefect’s words with satisfaction. [H]e had made sure, by private enquiry., by blackmail, by bribery, by flattery, by threat, that the motion to elect a smaller council would be passed, and who should chair it.’

The plot and subplots of The Secret Commonwealth are complex. New characters keep popping up, both good and bad, connecting this novel with the four previous ones. Old readers will usually identify them, though their present motivation is not always clear – and takes time to reveal. Too much detail here would be a spoiler, so I will stick to the central theme.

The friction between Lyra and Pan escalates. He accuses her of losing her imagination and leaves her to search for it.  Kicked out of Jordan College by the new Master, Lyra takes temporary refuge with Malcolm’s parents, but having no daemon makes her conspicuous. Realising she is being hunted by the forces of evil without knowing why, she goes to her old friend the Gyptian Farder Coram for help.  Furnished with a new identity as a witch, she sets out on a quest across Europe, Turkey and beyond in search of Pan, of a mysterious city haunted by daemons, and to the desert source of the rose oil, which has strange optical properties.

Meantime, Pan is also making his way across Europe, as is Malcolm, on a mission for Oakley Street. All three are travelling in the same direction, following similar trails, yet never meeting. The Magisterium, headed by Delmarre in his new powerful role as president, continues to pursue Lyra; Bonneville pursues her too.

After many new adventures, Lyra will reach her destination where – perhaps – even greater dangers await her. But for now, at the end of The Secret Commonwealth, we are left on a cliff edge and have to have to wait on Sir Philip while he writes and publishes the third volume.

The Secret Commonwealth is a great story and, as a fantasy, a better read than La Belle Sauvage. It is less linear and more engaging. I will have more to say on the genre in my third article, to follow. Here, I detected a few inconsistencies but they didn’t matter and didn’t spoil the fun. It was a bit disappointing that we didn’t get to meet Will again. Well, maybe in the third book…..

We get the idea of DUST – sort of. But what IS the Secret Commonwealth? You’ll have to read the book!

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Finally, for new readers (and viewers), here is a titbit (hopefully) by way of clarification as to what daemons are:

Human beings in Lyra’s world have lifetime companions, daemons, which take animal form. Daemons are not pets; they are not separate individuals but part of the human self, like the soul in our universe and language. Apparently ours take animal form too, which makes a certain amount of sense.

Until puberty, a child’s daemon can change form – animal, bird or insect; adults’ daemons have a fixed form. They reflect the adult’s personality. Thus Asriel’s Stelmaria was a snow leopard while the daemons of servants are often dogs. Spies (the bad guys) tend to have snakes.

Although part of the individual, daemons have a rational self which can argue, support or console the human part. With a few exceptions, humans and their daemons cannot separate. They cannot be parted by more than a metre or two.

The Daemon’s in all of us, and Dust – like Love – is all around apparently!

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