Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
