Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
