Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the church's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
