Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
