Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
