Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
