Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
