Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
