Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's air: portals that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
