Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
