Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
