Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
