Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
