“This is an old story. It is one of the first stories we learn. The desire to know more, to look closer and closer, to tear aside the veils of matter and see into the deepest mysteries – the human impulse to do that, this vile and impertinent curiosity, was fixed in the human soul as a photogram is fixed on paper, since the woman gave in to the serpent’s temptation in the garden of Paradise.”
No one who’s been paying attention to Philip Pullman’s work over the past 30 years will be surprised that his latest volume featuring Lyra Silvertongue explores ideas of original sin and religious authoritarianism; the first trilogy in this richly imagined alternate world is in part a retelling of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
But the Book of Dust trilogy deepens, expands and complicates what we already know about Lyra’s universe, rather than rehashing it. Now a university student, Lyra has parted ways with Pan, her daemon (a sort of external, animal-shaped soul), and has allegedly lost her imagination; on the journey to reunite with Pan she begins to discover how essential this quality really is, allowing her to “see connections between things, connections otherwise invisible, and find a meaning in them”.
Beneath all of this is the mysterious particle known as Dust, a substance deemed dangerous by the powerful Magisterium, and its relationship with a particular type of rose oil that seems to hail from another world. (The multiverse has become a much more common concept in fiction since this series began, but Pullman’s handling of it holds up well.) With nascent capitalism thrown into the mix, Lyra, Pan, and their various allies (expect many nods to previous instalments) are frequently in peril as they trek towards the window into the rose world, determined to keep it safe from an approaching army.
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Alongside much food for thought and a resistance towards offering simplistic or easy answers, there is skilful storytelling throughout – surprising twists, daring exploits and moving encounters rendered in gorgeous, elegant prose. The ending may leave readers aching for more – there’s certainly scope for further tales and a thread or two to pick up – but it is an exquisite pleasure to spend more time with these characters, in this immersive, vividly rendered universe.
