Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the world's sky: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
