Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a series of curious openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
