Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
