Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, 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 unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
