Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe 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 history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
