Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 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 diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
