Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
