Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
