Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
