Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's control. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
