Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
