Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that look to open into other worlds. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
