Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
