Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – 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 childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
