Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
