Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting 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 halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
