Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, 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
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
