Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
