Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the world's air: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
