Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
