Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the church's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
