Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and back to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the