Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: portals that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
