Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
