Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden 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 authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the