Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that appear to open into other worlds. One such window appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
