Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
