Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
