Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the