Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified 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
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
