Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials 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 adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
