Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
