Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met 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 this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell independence of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
