Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
