Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. One such window appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
