Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
