Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
