Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
