Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
