Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to open into other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
