Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
