Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
