Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
