Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and older 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 toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the