Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. One such window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
