Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
