Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – 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 set on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
