Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such window appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
