Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
