Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
