Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell independence of thought, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
