Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to lead to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
