Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears 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 commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
