Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
