Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
