Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
