Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
