Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
