Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
