Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
