Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the world's air: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
