Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's air: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
