Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest 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 Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
