Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
