Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
