Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into other worlds. One such window manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
