Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
