Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
