Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
