Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
