Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
