Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
