Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
