Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
