Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
