Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
