Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
