Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
