Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the church's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
