Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint 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.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
