Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
