Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
