Tings 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 intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
