Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel 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 shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
