Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
