Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl 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 recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
