Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's control. A key character, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
