Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the world's air: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
