Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature 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 the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell independence of reason, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
