Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's air: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
