Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
