Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
