Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles 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 filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
