Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra 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 its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
