Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle independence of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
