Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
