Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – 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 pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and return to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
