Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
