Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
