Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
